"Tool Stank"

This week, I grabbed a box of tools at work that brought back a lot of Crackerjack memories. The box was made of yellow plastic and on the inside were a set of multi-colored nut drivers of various sizes. Then it hit me … that smell! The Xcelite tool box has a smell the EPA would confuse with a hazardous waste dump. It’s absolutely stankalicious if you know what I mean.

It brought back memories yes it did. We used these tools quite extensively in the turbo-techno-twidget world of whizbangs and molecular synchro servo umpty squats in the good ol’ Canoe Club! You twidgets should all remember the old Xcelite tools. I remember the first time I’d used these engineering marvels, they had a smell worse than a Motel ‘6’ bathroom after a chilli dog eating contest! I spent a little time sniffing each tool in our unorthodox chaotic toolbox filled with accumulated crap discovering which ones gave off the butt stank! I’m not talking the unwashed rank kind of horrid. But the “something crawled inside a monkey’s ass, stayed there a week and fell out dead and horrid."

After a couple of ships and signing on to a brand new commissioned ship, we got a brand new set of these tools in each CIWS Mount in a big brown briefcase.  I thought for sure, some new tools that don’t stink … I couldn’t had been more wrong. As soon as the tool kit was opened the A/C in the space immediately recirculated the distinct smell of ass that permeated everything once the case was opened.

We tried dipping them in solvents like PD-680 and alcohol to kill the smell … nothing worked! We even poured stuff that made the place smell like a cheap New Orleans whorehouse. Our First Class at the time tried one of them ultra-sonic cleaning machines a time or two but with no luck. I guess the Top Brass figured working with such a high level of stank should develop a level of immunity that could stand up to anything below the level of ground zero in a CBR environment.

There were times you’d be laid out in the back of the shop, with your foul weather jacket tucked under your head taking a snooze until someone opened that God-for-sak’n tool case …

“Who the hells been wearing their skivvies inside out and backwards for the last three or four days?!?”

That smell could knock your socks off and send them running…

The best part was during General Quarters. Each Mount had three or four young Seamen from the Deck force assigned as their Battle-stations. There was nothing like a young crackerjack sailor all sweaty from a hot day on deck with deck gray spattered dungarees and arm pit stains the size of a volleyball.  They’d come in and get in battle dress discussing women’s tit sizes and sex with the fat girl that hangs out at that club out in town. The Mount Captain or one of the other techs would inconspicuously open the Xcelite case behind one of the unsuspected swabbies and …

“Man, what’s that smell? You been scratching your butt?”

… another would say …

“Seaman Jones, you smell like you haven’t used soap and water for two weeks! What, did that fat girl let out the flatulence and you haven’t showered since?”

“That’s some of the foulest air imaginable! Damn!!!”

“What are you a dog? Why don’t you shower after stick’n her in the butt?”

We would stumble around the CIWS Mount acting dumbfounded wondering what the hell that smell was. And the shenanigans would go on as that unsuspected swabby would take big time heat for that nasty smell, and none of the others were any of the wiser.

Yes, those were the days.  Your average civilian would never understand us. They just wouldn’t get it, period!