At NAS
Whidbey Island, Wa, the Chief of an avionics shop had to maintain a strict tool
control. So one day a pair of diagonal cutter pliers were missing. Diagonal
cutters are referred to as a pair of dikes as a nickname. The Chief said to his shipmates
…
“No one
is going home until the pair of dikes are found.”
After an additional
8 hours of a massive search, no one could find the dikes. As the third shift arrived
for duty, two of them were rather large female shipmates, and just as the female
airmen entered the shop a young male airman, after seeing the diagonal cutters
setting in a trash can stood up and in a loud military manor and said,
"All
right Chief, I found the pair of dikes, can we go home now?!?"
I was the E-Div Leading Chief on a cruiser… The XO, a rather pompous person because of his Grandfather’s history, was observing a tool checkout. He asked me how we made sure that no unauthorized personal equipment was allowed aboard. I told him “XO, every electrician onboard has a pair of dykes and used them as needed”.
ReplyDelete30 minutes later I heard my name on the 1MC with orders to report to the Captain’s inport cabin. When I arrived I was greeted by the CHENG and the (rather angry) XO and instructed to “enter and stand tall”. The Captain asked me why I was using gender negative comments. I asked him what he was referring to and the XO said “You were talking about lesbian women being forced to stand by your electricians”. It took a moment before I realized what he was talking about and then I said “Captain do you know what the trade name for side handle wire cutters is?” He said “Of course Chief, I’m a Mustang electrician myself, we call them dykes!”
At that point the XO turned beet red in embarrassment. The Captain, CHENG and I all got a good laugh about it, the XO turned tail and left.
Sometimes you wonder why he's an XO and doesn't have his own command, other times you don't.
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