One of the best jokes every played that I saw - a young 3rd class Petty Officer arrived onboard USS Saipan (LHA-2) in 1988. Our shop was in the island - I want to say it was the 08 level. Well, my LPO sent him down to the boatswains locker for "about 25 feet of water line". Immediately after the sailor left, my LPO got on the phone and called BM1, who he was friends with. About 45 minutes later, a sweat-drenched EW3 shows up in our shop carrying a bucket with a top on it. Inside it (unknown to him) was a bunch of chain. The EW1 popped open just enough of the lid to peak inside and exclaimed "Aw s**t! You got 1/2 inch water line. I wanted 3/4".", and made him return it to the boatswains locker. The BM1 was about to send him back up with the "right size" line when someone had mercy on the kid and tipped him off. I bet that young sailor lost 5 pounds in a few hours that day. :lol:
Same ship - when I first got there, my Chief sent me for "Relative Bearing Grease", which I knew to be a bunch of bull from the minute he said it. I already knew what Relative Bearing was, so I wasn't falling for it. Chief insisted I go down to see one of the Boiler Techs (BT's), so I walked down there hesitantly. BM1 greeted me with a, "What the **** do you want?", so I explained to him that my Chief had sent me on a fools errand, and I wasn't falling for it, but that he insisted I go down there. He asked who my Chief was, I answered and then he mumbled something about not liking him and threw me a small can. I caught it and looked at the label - Grease, Relative Bearing NSN 0123456789, etc, etc... Somewhere, somehow, he had got a label made up that looked like the real thing, right down to a NSN. He told me "chill for a while", and pointed to a chair. I sat and shot the bull with him and a bunch of other guys for a while and then walked slowly back to my shop. When I walked in and Chief started ripping me a new one, I told him I had done what he asked me and went to get Relative Bearing Grease. When he grinned and yelled "Well... Did you get it?", I tossed him the small can and said "Yep". You should have seen his face when he read the label. He never tried something like that on me again.
I've got a ton of them - especially from that ship. Best one I ever did was a Planned Maintenance Check for ventilation, in which I was showing a new guy how to do. I told him it was a check to clean the air filters, and that we had to go down to Engineering and request to "Blow the EOOW".
He went down there thinking EOOW had something to do with the ventilation system, and when he asked, the Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW) just grinned and pointed to his name tag. The kid damn near hurt himself trying to get out of that space! :lol::lol::lol:
Nice nautical lessons. I forgot to post on your last one. I always remembered (unless I'm driving a 911CDC), that I'm the "star" of my boat (in my own mind
) so my side of the boat is "starboard" when I'm driving.
All the best,
Glenn
