SIMULATING NAVY LIFE AT HOME
Some of these are pretty accurate. Read for a good laugh.

I am speaking today on behalf of those of us who have family members that think we live a "TOP GUN" existence. You know, those family members that have watched one too many episodes of JAG, and think that Navy life is glamorous. I have a few suggestions for these people on how they can experience Navy life, right in the comfort of their own homes.

1. Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months straight.

2. Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside of the walls.

3. Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement "deck gray".

4. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go the scummiest part of town, find the most run down, trashy bar you can, pay $10 per beer until you're hammered, then walk home in the freezing cold.

5. Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.

6. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday turn it down to 10 degrees. On Saturdays, and Sundays declare to your entire family that they used too much water during the week, so all showering is secured.

7. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling.

8. Have your next door neighbor come over each day at 5am, and blow a whistle so loud that Helen Keller could hear it and shout "Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up"

9. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in the back yard at 6am and read it to you.

10. Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then lock the bathroom door for 12 hours, and hang a sign on it that reads "Secured contact S4 DIV at X-7182"

11. Submit a request form to your father-in-law, asking if it's ok for you to leave your house before 3pm.

12. Invite 200 of your not-so-closest friends to come over, then board up all the windows and doors to your house for 6 months. After the 6 months is up, take down the boards, and since you're on duty, wave at your friends and family through the front window of your home...you can't leave until the next day.

13. Shower with above-mentioned friends.

14. Make your family qualify to operate all the appliances in your home (i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc)

15. Walk around your car for 4 hours checking the tire pressure every 15 minutes.

16. Sit in your car and let it run for 4 hours before going anywhere. This is to ensure your engine is properly "lit off".

17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not.

18. Repaint your entire house once a month.

19. Cook all of your food blindfolded, groping for any spice and seasoning you can get your hands on.

20. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, randomly losing every 5th item.

21. Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch CNN and the Weather Channel.

22. Have your 5-year-old cousin give you a haircut with goat shears.

23. Sew back pockets to the front of your pants.

24. Spend 2 weeks in the red-light districts of Europe and/or the Pacific Rim, and call it "world travel"

25. Attempt to spend 5 years working at McDonalds, and NOT get promoted.

26. Ensure that any promotions you do get are from stepping on the dead bodies of your co-workers.

27. Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed.

28. When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs that your home is under attack, and order them to man their battle stations.

29. Post a menu on the refrigerator door informing your family that you are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for at least an hour, when they finally get to the kitchen, tell them that you are out of steak, but you have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they don't pay attention to the menu any more, they just ask for hot dogs. (My personal favorite)

30. In the middle of January, place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have you family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 8-hour intervals.

31. Lock yourself and your family in your house for 6 weeks. Then tell them that at the end of the 6th week you're going to take them to Disneyland for "weekend liberty". When the end of the 6th week rolls around, inform them that Disneyland has been cancelled due to the fact that they need to get ready for E-cert, and that it will be another week before they can leave the house.

Put your family through these, and then let them tell you how glamorous Navy life is.