"Buffer Rodeos"

 

Here is some prose I wrote to put lightning bugs in your salty hearts and kick starts many an old memory for you ol’ salty dogs…

As a lowly Seaman forced to clean shitters and many a butt-kit, the same filthy task day after day, we were rarely afforded the opportunity to enjoy the small things in life. I should know because I’d been there … over a year in Great Mistakes with about a month on restriction and extra duty, but that’s another story.

Sometimes you’d end up with a First Class or Chief who was a world-class pain-in-the-ass son-of-a-bitch. My severe pain in the ass was paired with a heavily inflated ego that took no shit from no one. Boy did I find out the hard way. That surely explains all those hours of extra duty I had to contend with.

I don’t know if there was a book out “Joining the Navy for Dummies,” but I sure could have used it had it made my life a little easier. We animals at the bottom of the food chain never got no respect! That’s when I thought I was hated by people for reasons I never understood.  

One of the most important requirements of a Chief or First Class Petty Officer was the ability to create aimless 'bullshit work’ …

“Idle hands are the work of the devil.”

Once the Petty Officer left us unsupervised, we spent more time dick’n the dog than doing productive work. And those gauddamned inspections…  We’d buff the deck to a mirror polish just so some anchor-heavy son-of-a-bitch could roast us with an UNSAT because he found particles of dust dried into the wax in the corner of the space...

“There’s dirt caked into this wax. You’ll have to strip the deck and do it again, and don’t do such a half-assed job this time.”

 Some of those fellas were real ball-bust’n pricks.

The idea was that we bottom-feeders would turn to a life of crime if we weren’t busy on some chain gang mission.  If it was up to the powers that be, we’d be busier than a one-armed man in a circle jerk contest 24/7! I think that’s when I first discovered the phrase …

“Don’t be early, don’t be late, and Never Again Volunteer Yourself.”

When you’re ranked about as low as the rapscallions feeding on whale shit, your duties included taking out the trash and stripping & waxing decks daily. You knew you lost it when you became overjoyed that the section leader brought in a brand new Kolbenz 1500 Ultra High-Speed spinning buffer machine … with shined chrome and all the bells and whistles! Then someone would pipe up and say …

“I just can’t wait to take that bitch on the rodeo ride of my life!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Come on kid! You never heard of buffer rodeos?”

“The hell with these working parties, man. Fuck them right in the ass! We gotta make this working party into a real party!”

And that’s when the fun began…

I forget who came up with this one but it was a helluva lot of fun.

Back in those days, I don’t think there was such a thing as a “Risk Assessment Matrix” in the ol’ Canoe Club. We were ten feet tall and could conquer the world … that’s all that mattered. Most of us were hell raisers anyway, and if it weren’t for the Navy, we’d all be back home in our own podunk towns getting arrested or molested.  We did about every dumb thing on the planet when no one was looking except drinking the turpentine… I can’t speak for everyone. Yes, we were Darwinian Award-winning prospects, that’s for damned sure. I guess as babies there was more than one of us left on the “Tilt-a-Whirl” for too long.  

Buffing rodeo style was especially hazardous in a crowded space. You could only imagine all the road hazards you could hit your head upon… brackets for extinguishers, first aid boxes, bunk racks, desks, lockers, those old-fashioned heaters whatcha ma’ call its… you name it!  We came out pretty good somehow without sustaining any real head trauma of some sort or fashion … so I think!  

“Aw hell son, your buffer rodeo game is weak. I’ll ride that motherfucker until it unplugs itself. Now move over and get a load of this!”

“That’s when you’re not busy having butt sex.”

“Eat me!”

It was your typical duty night in the barracks. We hadn’t heard nothing about them safety briefs, just a bunch of young’ns having fun … your tax dollars at work. In those days it was a “rite of passage.” I tell you, looking back I swear we didn’t have a brain cell to share between the lot of us. I would imagine the undiagnosed concussion from a buffer rodeo is better proof of service than a DD-214.

The Buffer Rodeo … a time-honored military tradition. It transcends all the military branches.

( Fin )