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How To Simulate Submarine Life At Home
- Surround yourself with a few people you don't
like
- Close all windows and doors tightly, close curtains
- Seal any openings to outside world with a proper
vault
- Unplug all radios and televisions to cut yourself
off completely from news, football games, Saturday Night Live,
the Muppet Show, etc.
- Hourly, monitor all operating home appliances.
If not in use, log as secured.
- If using the bathroom, do not flush toilet for
first two days to simulate smell of blowing sanitaries and venting
inboard. Then flush daily.
- Wear only approved FBM coveralls, or proper Navy
uniform. No hats, special T-shirts, etc.
- Cut your hair once a week, ensuring you make
it look like hell.
- Work in 18-hour day intervals to ensure your
body really gets confused.
- Listen to the same cassette over and over until
you can't stand it anymore, then put in one you can't even listen
to without acute nausea setting in.
- Set alarm to go off just as you fall asleep,
with alarm set at loud, or buy a special alarm with various settings,
(i.e., "Man Battle Stations, Fire, Flooding in the Basement").
- Prepare food with a blindfold on to simulate
what real submarine cooks do. Then take blindfold off and try
to get your dog to eat it. Then break out a can of tuna, and/or
peanut butter.
- Cut your bed in half, and enclose all but one
side using the dimensions of a casket as a reference. When not
in bed, make up blankets properly so no one will see or care.
- Periodically, for want of excitement, open main
power breaker and run around yelling "Reactor Scram",
until you are sweating profusely, then restore power.
- Buy yourself a snorkel and mask, and again, periodically,
just for want of nothing else to do, put it on and pretend you're
in a smoke-filled room with no way out. For added variety, hook
up a garden hose and pressurize.
- To enable yourself to handle anything, constantly
study wiring diagrams and operating instructions for various home
appliances (stove, refrigerator, can opener). For no reason at
all, at specified intervals (monthly, weekly, etc.) tear one item
apart, just in case it was going to break.
- Paint everything around you gray (Navy FSN gray,
no substitutes) or off-white.
- To be sure you are living in a clean and happy
environment, every Friday, set alarm on loud for a short but hated
drill sound, then get up and manned with only a bucket and sponge
and greeny, clean one area over and over, even if it was already
spotless. Then make out discrepancy list.
- Once a day, after normal programming hours, plug
in TV and watch one (1) movie being careful that it is (a) at
least five years old, (b) made long enough prior to showing to
be sure you've seen it at least once before, or (c) be so bad
you have to install a seatbelt in your chair to keep you there
until it is over.
- Since no doctor will be available, stockpile
bandaids, aspirin and actifed - these are proven cure-alls. Practice
as necessary on your dog (surgery, dentistry, death).
- When commencing this test simulation, lock your
family, friends and anything that means anything to you outside.
Test will run for at least two months with no end in sight.
If you can do this, you can do just about anything!
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