May 12, 2000 marks the occasion of yet another significant event I have been unable to attend due to
my committment to the freedom of the citizens of the United States. Ok, I'm really committed to the fact that I would owe the
government a solid $100K if I got out, but I'm sure you get the point. The list of events includes my wife and daughters' last three
birthdays, every
anniversary my wife and I have had, and numerous
school assemblies,
athletic events, and
doctors' appointments. My dad and my
brother accompanied my daughters to the dance last night. Thank goodness I have a
close family who will pick up my
slack.
I have a new office, and I keep smelling strange scents at my desk.
I'll be sitting at my desk, quietly
working, and disgusting smells will suddenly waft up for which I can find no source. So far, I have identified fresh
dog shit and
stinky feet. Very strange. As to the feet, hey,
I know what you're thinking, and it could be me, but I do keep them safely encased in
boots which usually
prevents smell leakage. As for the dog crap, there are no dogs on the ship, and unless someone has played a practical joke on me or the previous desk owner, I don't know how the smell gets here.
I am sick and tired of the organization, complexity, and uniformity enforced by the Navy.
I realized last night that in the
head (Ship jargon for bathroom, toilet, loo, etc.) I use, the toilet stalls are numbered. Each door has a red number on it for no apparent reason. I assume that they want to be able to easily distinguish one from the other in case they have to ask someone to come and fix it. Rather than saying, "Yeah, it's the one
overflowing with urine and feces", they can simply ask them to fix Number
n. Frankly, I'm just a little tired of
the need to compulsively number or label
everything, so I'm going to perform some minor modifications and slight
civil disobediance. I plan on removing the numbers and replacing them with names. Not '
alice' or '
bob', but nice descriptive names like "
Ms. Look at my ass because this toilet has no lock", and "
Mr. Blows-water-all-over-you-when-it- flushes-jangles".