HOW
TO SIMULATE LIFE ON
A RADAR PICKETT SHIP
Buy a steel dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and
live in it for six months.
Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.
Repaint your entire house battleship gray every month.
Put lube oil in your humidifier and turn it on high.
Once a month take every major appliance apart, let it sit
for six hours and put it back together.
Install a fluorescent light under your coffee table, then
lie under it and read a book.
Invite 85 people you don't like to stay for 2 months.
Lockwire the lug nuts on your car.
Renovate your bathroom.
Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the showerhead to
chest level. When you take showers,
make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.
Buy a trash compactor, use it only once a week and store
the trash in the other half of the bathtub.
Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front
and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through them.
Leave the lawnmower running in the living room for 24
hours. (Mandatory for snipes)
Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water
heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On
Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the
water heater off. On Saturdays and
Sundays tell your family they use too much water during
the week, so no bathing will be allowed.
Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you
can't turn over without getting out and then
getting back in.
Sleep on the shelf in your closet.
Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse
whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in
your eyes, and say, "Sorry, wrong rack."
Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in
your house: dishwasher operator, blender
technician, etc.
Have your neighbor come over each day at 5 am, blow a
whistle loudly, and shout "Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and
trice up."
Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going
to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 6 am while she reads it to you.
Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting
permission to leave your house before 3 PM.
Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the
driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not.
Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month,
read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to
you.
Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the
night. Have your family vote on
which movie to watch, then tune in a different one.
Make your family menu a week ahead of time without
consulting the pantry or refrigerator.
Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family
that they are having steak for dinner. Then
make them wait in line for an hour. When
they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs.
Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.
Bake a cake. Prop
up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly.
Spread icing real thick to level it off.
Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut
butter sandwich on stale bread. (midrats)
Once a week, blow compressed air up your chimney, watch
the soot land on your neighbor's car, laugh when he curses you.
Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the
night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making
sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the
backyard and uncoil the garden hose. Or
put on stereo headphones, stand in front of the kitchen range , say to no one in
particular, "Stove manned and ready, sir." 3 hours later say "stove secured, sir," hang the
phones on the oven door and go back to bed.
Every week or so, throw your dog in the pool and shout,
"Man overboard port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond.
Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but
don't plug them in. Hang a paper
cup around your neck on a string. Stand
in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup, "Stove manned and ready." After
an hour or so, speak into the cup again
"Stove secured." Roll up
the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoebox.
Place a podium at the end of your driveway.
Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour
intervals. This is best done when the weather is
worst. January is a good time.
When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly
rocking chair, sit in it and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous.
Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.
Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee
grounds per pot, and allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours, with the grounds still
in the pot,
before drinking.
Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with
sheep shears.
Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front.
Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for "liberty." At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house.