Living Aboard Ship
Page 4 of 11
- Have your 5-year-old give you a haircut every two weeks.
- Have your neighbor collect all your mail and deliver it once a month. Instruct them to trash every fifth item and to send every some mail randomly to other addresses.
- Invite 200 to 1000 of your 'not so closest' friends to come over. Board up all the windows and doors to your house for six months. After 6 months, take down the boards so people can leave. However, since you and one third of the 'friends' cannot leave until the next day since you are on duty, wave at your family through the front window of your home.
- Shower, eat, and sleep with the above-mentioned friends never more than an arm's length away. Instruct 10% of the 'friends' NOT to shower on a regular basis and an additional 10% NOT to change clothes more than once a month.
- Unplug all radios and TVs to completely cut yourself off from the outside world. Have a neighbor bring you a Time, Newsweek, or Proceedings from five years ago to keep you abreast of current events.
- For a fire, periodically, shut off all power at the main circuit breaker and run around shouting "Fire! Fire! Fire!" and then restore power.
- For a fire, set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed, get dressed as fast as you can, then run into your backyard and break out the garden hose.
- For a fire, twice a week at 2:30 in the morning, sneak into the children’s room, ring a bell and yell though a bullhorn "Fire! Fire! Fire! There is a Class Alpha Fire in the kitchen!" Just as soon as they get dressed and start to run, yell, "This is a drill!"
- For General Quarters, hut all doors and windows in the kitchen, turn the heat up, set off the smoke alarm, and then have each family member put on head phones, a long sleeve shirt buttoned at the collar, long pants with socks pulled over the cuffs, gloves, and a ski mask, put a pot over their head, put on a life preserver, and carry a full face swim mask as they run into the kitchen and stand by an assigned appliance. When they arrive, they are to yell "Stove (refrigerator, microwave, etc.) manned and ready." Then they must stand there for four hours doing nothing, not eating or drinking, or going to the bathroom. After four hours, they are to yell "Stove (refrigerator, microwave, etc.) secured,” and then return to their regular activities.
- For General Quarters, when your children have been in bed for 3 hours, run into their room with a megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs that your home is under attack, and order them to man their battle stations.
- For Man Overboard, very so often, throw your cat into the swimming pool, shout "man overboard, ship recovery!"
- Designate a closet in your house as a repair locker, equip it with firefighting gear, and assign family members to man it during drills. Then hold fire, smoke, and flooding drills every day.