1. Lock all friends and family outside. Your only means of
communication should be with letters that your neighbours have held for
at least three weeks, discarding two of five.
2. Surround yourself with 200 people that you don’t really know or
like: people who smoke, snore like Mack trucks going uphill,and use foul
language like a child uses sugar on cereal.
3. Unplug all radios and TVs to completely cut yourself off from the
outside world. Have a neighbour bring you a Time, Newsweek, or
Proceedings from five years ago to keep you abreast of current events.
4. Monitor all home appliances hourly, recording all vital information
(ie: plugged in, lights come on when doors open, etc)
5. Do not flush the toilet for five days to simulate the smell of 40
people using the same commode.
6. Lock the bathroom twice a day for a four hour period.
7. Wear only military uniforms. Even though nobody cares, clean and
press one dress uniform and wear it for 20 minutes.
8. Cut your hair weekly, making it shorter each time, until you look
bald or look like you lost a fight with a demented sheep.
9. Work in 19-hour cycles, sleeping only four hours at a time, to
ensure that your body does not know or even care if it is day or night.
10. Listen to your favourite CD 6 times a day for two weeks, then play
music that causes acute nausea until you are glad to get back to your
favourite CD.
11. Cut a twin mattress in half and enclose three sides of your bed.
Add a roof that prevents you from sitting up (about 10 inches is a good
distance) then place it on a platform that is four feet off the floor.
Place a small dead animal under the bed to simulate the smell of your
bunkmate’s socks.
12. Set your alarm to go off at 10 minute intervals for the first hour
of sleep to simulate the various times the watchstanders and nightcrew
bump around and wake you up. Place your bed on a rocking table to
ensure you are tossed around the remaining three hours. Make use of a
custom clock that randomly simulates fire alarms, police sirens,
helicopter crash alarms, and a new-wave rock band.
13. Have week old fruit and vegetables delivered to your garage and
wait two weeks before eating them.
14. Prepare all meals blindfolded using all the spices you can grope
for, or none at all. Remove the blindfold and eat everything in three
minutes.
15. Periodically, shut off all power at the main circuit breaker and
run around shouting “fire, fire, fire” and then restore power.
16. At least once a month, force the commode to overflow to simulate a
‘black water system’ boo-boo.
17. Buy a gas mask and smear it with rancid animal fat. Scrub the
faceshield with steel wool until you can no longer see out of it. Wear
this for two hours every fifth day especially when you are in the
bathroom.
18. Study the owner’s manual for all household appliances. Routinely
take an appliance apart and put it back together.
19. Remove all plants, pictures and decorations. Paint everything
gray, white, or the shade of hospital smocks.
20. Buy 50 cases of toilet paper and lock up all but two rolls. Ensure
one of these two rolls is wet all the time.
21. Smash your forehead or shins with a hammer every two days to
simulate collision injuries sustained onboard Navy ships.
22. When making sandwiches, leave the bread out for six days, or until
it is hard and stale.
23. Every 10 weeks, simulate a visit to another port. Go directly to
the city slums wearing your best clothes. Find the worst looking place,
and ask for the most expensive beer that they carry. Drink as many as
you can in four hours. Take a cab home taking the longest possible
route. Tip the cabby after he charges you double because you dress
funny and don’t speak right.
24. Use fresh milk for only two days after each port visit.
25. Keep the bedroom thermostat at 2 deg C and use only a thin blanket
for warmth.
26. Ensure that the water heater is connected to a device that provides
water at a flow rate that varies from a fast drip to a weak trickle,
with the temperature alternating rapidly from -2 to 95 deg C.
27. Use only spoons which hold a minimum of 1/2 cup at a time.
28. Repaint the interior of your home every month, whether it needs it
or not.
29. remind yourself every day: ‘it’s not just a job, _it’s_an_adventure_!
30. mix kerosene with your water supply to simulate the de-sal plant on the
ship picking up jp5 in the intake — if a lit match thrown into your
coffee pot doesn’t ignite it, add more kerosene.
31. Stand outside at attention at dawn and have the poorest
reader you know read the morning paper outloud. Be sure to have
him skip over anything pertinent.
32. Every four hours, check the fluid level in your car’s
radiator. Check the tire pressure and replace air lost from
excessive pressure checks. Be sure to place red tag on ignition
stating “DANGER: DO NOT OPERATE” while you perform these checks.
Inform your neighbor as to the results of these checks, have him
tell you to repeat the checks because he did not see you perform
them.
33. Paint your house grey (exterior) include windows except for
rooms you do not frequent, paint your car grey, paint your
driveway a different shade of grey.
34. Wait outside your dining area as a family member eats a
meal, then have that person serve you a meal prepared several
hours earlier.
35. Shut all blinds and doors at sunset.
36. Clean your house ’till there’s absolutely not a speck of
dust anywhere. Call on a stranger to come inspect your house.
Ensure stranger sees dust that has collected in the time it took
to find him. Stranger cannot leave until he finds irrational
fault with your house/belongings.
37. Hang Christmas lights in June. When the neighbors ask, say,
“deceptive lighting.”
38. Hang white lights when relatives visit. When neighbors ask,
say, “friendship lights.”
