'Day Sleepers'

This one here ought to drive some of you Ol’ Coots crazy! Remember late sleepers?!?

Now you have to understand that this here Canoe Club was one of the craziest, most bizarre institutes ever known to man! I know that’s a hefty boast… and sometimes it seems almost reasonable... It isn't!! You found yourself in floating grey steel hulls like aquatic trailer parks with lots of pointy missiles and huge guns, driven by last year's high school seniors and operating on World War II technology!! Usually nobody knew what the hell was going on… That's so the enemy hadn’t a damned clue as to what we were doing!!!

Underway watches were stood 24/7! It’s traditionally held that if you stood the balls to four you got late sleepers for an extra hour or two… but it ain’t no gauddamned picnic!! Shortly after Reveille it got louder than the Daytona Speedway & usually smelled like a boys locker room in the middle of Karachi, Pakistan!! If you’ve been to Karachi… you know what I’m talking about!!!

First it started with the 1MC at 0600 hours and a full fledge minute of that gauddamned Boatswain’s Whistle! Then it was lights on, radios and boob tubes a blaring in one ear and needle guns and every other existential noise making device going off like grand central station in the other!! If happiness was eradicated then corrective action was deemed effective!!!

"Knock off the bullshit and let a working sailor get some sleep!"

And by God don’t get caught in your rack without a late sleeper’s chit! It’d be like getting caught molesting a retarded Jewish girl at a Skinhead convention!! Sons-a-Bitches would lose their ever loving minds!!!

It’s usually some triple chevron wearing jughead with a list of all the fellas authorized extra zzzz’s! He’d pace the berthing verifying names while rais’n hell with anyone look’n for funny business!! It was like he was rousing up criminals, yank’n curtains open and yell’n…

“Time to get up… and welcome to the Real World Morning Glory!”

… or …

“Wakey… Wakey… Eggs & Bakey!”

… Every so often…

“I’ve met some real pricks in my time, but you’re a real cactus!”

“Aah… dissolve your sleepers and clear your eyes candy ass… It’s wake up time!”

… Yeah it was the kind of fella that made that Commie Chairman Mao look like a radical libertarian! They just had to make it more trouble than it was worth!!!

And when you just got done pulling Thirty-Six hours straight and now was your chance for late sleepers, the morning berthing cleaners were like a shipment of bouncing pork dildos with eyes ready to dick with you at any moment! They were like the human form of herpes… as soon as you thought they were gone, you had another flare up… a sore that wouldn’t go away!!! 

If you ever want to test a late sleeper’s patience, turn the gauddamned television up full blast while bang’n into everything humanly possible within earshot! Especially that gauddamned cadillac & swab... You get the same effect from swift kicking a yellow jackets nest!! It’s about as welcomed as a turd in the water supply!! Some Sons-a-Bitches can make more noise than a monsoon whistling up a badger’s ass!!!

I remember once a fella was try’n his damnedest to get a ghost turd in one of them metal dust pans… you know the ones, black and always bent all to hell!! This fella couldn’t direct a turd down a toilet he was so dumb!!

“Hey… someone’s trying to sleep over here!”

…If he were any dumber, he’d photosynthesize in the sunlight!!!

I mean, when you’re walking on egg shells, don’t hop! You get what I’m saying?!? It’s obvious as you’re lying there that this fellas IQ is so far below recognition you couldn’t reach him with a rope and a bucket!!!

“How the fuck do you exist?”

“HUH?!?”

“Have you thought about stopping?”

… Let me tell you, common sense ain’t no gift… it’s a gauddamned punishment when you have to deal with all the assholes around falling short!!!

I’ve been on the other end of that fuck stick as well! You've got berthing cleaners and this dumb son-of-a-bitch is in his rack way past his bedtime!! That’s when all the real fun begins!!!

There’s nothing like being triced up, bottom rack and involuntarily taking witness to a healthy set of Cat Brains! Just imagine ‘Bill the Cat’ from Bloom County… his cheeks!! You get the picture… scarred into your mind!!!

Or if you couldn’t resist, while the poor bastard is snoozing, move all his shit around! Put his boondockers in the overhead or in an empty kapok locker!! Even hide shit in the angle irons where the XO loves to dig around during Heads & Beds!!!

Sometimes you got one of them sick sons-a-bitches that like to sleep butt nekkit with their curtains open in the middle rack, occasionally battling the bishop in a game of command & control for everyone to see…

“What’s wrong… never seen anyone masturbate before? …Weirdo, you need to be slapped with a Dick!”

Of course you might have run into the occasional fella who’d roll outta his rack and out drops a boa constrictor! I won’t tell you it was a foot long, but it looked over a foot long… and I don’t feel gay say’n that either… it’s just the facts!! That’ll make you want to scratch your gauddamned eye balls out!! But Hey, the Navy ain’t your home away from some-place-in-North-East-Bible-Belt-Butt-Fuckville!!!

And I won’t even get into the sex toys and blow up dolls!!!

It went on and on… Young Crackerjacks totally lacking in social grace or considerate behavior! You remember that 'Rock-a-bye Baby' song your mother sung to you while you were still in training pants?!? Well… this ain’t it!!!

The worthless, good for nothing, inconsiderate, bastards… I miss every one of them! Didn’t think I would… but there it is and here I am journalizing just for you!! The ignorance of being young still possessed some innocent charm… it’s what made us men!!!