Living Aboard Ship
Page 11 of 11
- Strings ropes from your roof to your neighbor’s roof at 5:00 am, and then have all family members assemble on the roof wearing lifejackets and hard hats. Have then stand around until 8:00 am and then send everyone inside telling them it will be 2 hours until they will be needed and that they should eat breakfast. Wait until they just start to eat, and call them back to the roof. Transfer the contents of your neighbor's garage to your garage using the lines strung from roof to roof.
- For refueling, before filling your car's gas tank hold a meeting six hours in advance of the station's opening. Assemble medical personnel, all your immediate relatives, safety observers and the fire department ready with fire hoses three hours before the station opens. Require everyone to line up on the sidewalk at parade rest as the clerk opens the station. Send a fuel sample to a testing lab before starting to fill up.
- For low visibility watch, while driving in foggy weather, instruct your children to turn around, look out the back window, and make reports on anything they see.
- For bridge watch, get your neighbor to phone you at 11:30 pm, dress in the dark, hang binoculars around your neck, and stare at the backyard from your patio. Identify the whereabouts of all bats, crickets, moths, and stray dogs by sound and sight, keep a written record of everything you see, and choke down at least one cup of four-day old black coffee every thirty minutes. Anytime a critter enters the yard, call your wife on the cell phone to apprise her of its movements. On snowy or foggy nights, be sure to blow an air horn at regular intervals to warn the neighbors of your whereabouts.
- For bridge watch, go to a local bridge and stare at the water for twelve straight hours.
- For quaterdeck watch, in the middle of January, place a lectern at the end of your driveway. Have you family stand watches at the lectern, rotating at 4-hour intervals.
- For quaterdeck watch, make all your children identify themselves every time they enter or leave the house, ask for permission to enter or leave, and then salute the flag on the back porch.
- For sonar watch,Disconnect your TV cable box and stare to the static for six hours. Report every 15 minutes to no one in particular, "Sonar holds no contacts."
- Don your Sunday best and stand on your front porch for four hours.
- In winter, invite all your neighbors to your house at midnight. Stand on your front pouch in a light jacket, a thin white hat, and a pair of thin gloves. Salute every person that arrives and grant them "permission to come aboard.” Have your wife relieve you at 4:00 am dressed in warm clothes. Spend next two hours trying to warm up and get some sleep before the next day’s work.
- Stand by the phone from 12 A.M. to 4 A.M. with a logbook, fire bell, and intrusion alarm panel within reach. Mount a gauge on the wall to read your house's water pressure. Have your youngest child walk around with a tape measure to see if your basement is flooding. He/she must check it every hour and report back to you that all conditions are normal. With each report, phone a neighbor, and tell him all conditions are normal at your house and report the water pressure.
- Walk around your car for four hours, check the tire pressure, oil level, and fuel level every 15 minutes, and keep an accurate log of the readings.
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