I remember one time the G.Q. alarm went off.
A bunch of us were standing right in the middle of the horizontal line of the “H”. (4)
Well, within seconds, the place was flooded with Marines. Like I said before, their birthing space was right below the mess deck, and their entrance and exit was here on the mess level. So, they were up those stairs and on you in a hurry!
Also remember, these guys work all of their lives to be in this do or die situation. That’s what they’ve been training for. So these muthafucker's were dead serious when that alarm sounded.
And when it did, and they came running outta that hole, you'd better believe that those fuckin’ M-16’s were fully loaded, with live ammunition!
So look out baby, the Marines are a comin!
To make things a little more stressful, the entrances down to the nuclear reactor and weaponry area was on the mess deck as well, right across from the Marines birthing entrance. (3)
And only 50 feet from us retards.
So, you see, this mess deck
could be a very dangerous place.
So where was I again?
Oh yeah. We were standing in the middle
of the “H”, when bang, the alarm went off,
and out came the maniacs.
We all hit the deck and started right in with the jokes. Giggling like fuckin’ five-year-olds.
(Remember now, this was 1982/83. World events weren't nearly what they are today 2014. If this was today, I'm betting that there wouldn't be not one fucking joke coming out of our stupid mouths... LoL)
The Marines all took up their positions. There was one at each end of the horizontal line.
(5a) & (5b)
Now remember, I said that no one knew if it was a drill or not. So, these guys only have time to grab their guns, some ammunition, and then they’re out the door. So, half the guys
weren’t even dressed.
Underwear, boots, bullets, and guns, were the uniform of the day. Oh yeah, and helmets. Gotta have that helmet. Your balls may get blown off, but your fat head stayed protected.
Fanatical stuff, man.
And there we were, smack dab in the middle of a hornet’s nest, (4) ... makin’ fun of the hornets. Oh, without them knowing, of course.
Ya think we’re stupid or something? LoL
Well, if you were a non-mess deck person
who just happened to be present when the alarm sounded and the lunatics were called,
you had to stop dead in your tracks,
and get the fuck outta their way.
Then like us, drop down to the floor if there was room, to emulate us cowards. There was no time for any bullshit. These guys were protecting the entrance to the nuclear portion of the ship.
You're talkin' a do or die situation here my friend. And believe me, rank didn’t mean shit when you were staring down the business end
of an M-16 rifle.
But, that day, there was one arrogant asshole officer who didn’t wanna play the game.
So, he had to be persuaded, Marine style.
It was quiet, and we were still hugging the floor in the middle of the “H”. (4) There was a Marine to our left (5a) and one to our right, (5b)
and one dickhead officer standing up
to our left not too far from us
within the middle line area. (6)
He caught the eye of the Marine at the opposite end, across the ship. The Marine yelled out to the officer for him to get down on the floor. There was no response. The asshole just ignored him.
So, the Marine yelled out again.
Only in a more forceful, firmer voice,
for the officer to get down on the floor.
The asshole looked right at the Marine, and still, remained standing. I could just hear that dickhead thinking to himself, no way am I gonna listen to some jarhead private. I’m an officer!
You’re a fuckin’ asshole Mister!
Us cowards on the floor suddenly stopped making jokes, as a thick tension began to fill the air
after the Marine’s second attempt
to ground the dickhead officer.
Then, we looked over at said Marine, and he took one step out, lowered his fully loaded, safety off, M-16 rifle directly at the asshole officer,
(-----) and yelled out……
“I SAID, GET THE FUCK DOWN
ON THE FLOOR MUTHAFUCKA!”
Fuck man, I felt as though I was in a movie or something. It’s not everyday you get to see a U.S. Marine, clad in underwear and boots, threatening to shoot someone. I don’t know if he scared that officer, but he had us cowards
fuckin’ trembling in our smocks! LoL
But yes, I believe the office also shit his pants. Because the very next thing he did
was to get down on the floor.
Man, it was scary being so close to shit like that. I could never be a cop, or anything similar. It would cost me a fortune in underwear alone.
The other Marine story reconfirms the you fuck with one of us, and you fuck with us all mentality these guys held onto.
Once again, we were on the mess deck and the G.Q. siren sounded. But this time, we weren’t within the horizontal line. We were walking along one of the perpendicular hallways, real close to the Marines birthing space ladder. (7)
Well, the alarm went off, and we all made like paint and became part of the wall. Seconds later, those fuckers came tearin' ass outta their hole.
Remember I said that no one knew if this was a real emergency or not. So these guys were running full speed, yelling out orders to clear a path, and more or less to get the fuck outta their way you pussy Navy boys. Us men have to come and pull your asses out of the fire again.
Yeah, so!
That’s what you’re trained to do, you fucking assholes. What, was I gonna beat some intruder up with my broom and dustpan, you dick!
Now get your asses out here, and save me,
you muthafuckers!
(Sorry, just me thinking aloud)
Well, while us smock-wearin’ pussies were makin’ like paint, their lurked a wise-ass
along the opposite wall. (8)
There’s always some asshole in the crowd
who has to do something to grab the attention. Now, I must admit, most of the time
that asshole was me!
But I knew better than to fuck with these guys
in their moment of glory.
What this guy did, who wasn't one of us mess deck guys by the way, was push a cleaning bucket into the middle of the passageway
with his foot. On purpose.
Well, I guess you know what happened next.
Of course, one of the Marines tripped over
the bucket, and tumbled to the ground.
Now under different circumstances,
us pussy-boys would’ve been the first ones laughing, but we were too afraid of getting shot
for any of that tomfoolery now.
So we didn’t say a fucking word dude.
Not so much as a smirk!
In fact, the only asshole laughing, was the asshole himself who pushed the bucket.
Now, what happened next, only took like 2 or 3 seconds. It was bing, bang, boom, really fast.
Let me see if I can write it that fast……………
and that’s what happened!
Oh, too fast?
Okay, I’ll slow it down a bit.
(C'mon, that was funny!)
Well the Marine tripped over the bucket and the asshole that did it began to laugh. Then without losing a step, the very next Marine in line while still running grabbed his fallen comrade
with one hand, and lifted him to his feet,
and they both continued on their way.
And now here comes the best part of the story. The very next gung-ho mutherfucka in line obviously saw what had gone down. So without hesitation, or thought, he just raised the butt end of his fully loaded, safety off, M-16 rifle, and blasted the asshole jokster right in the face, BAMMM!
It was beautiful!
That asshole saw stars, man. He just wilted towards the floor like a wet noodle! But, I mean this happened right in front of us in fast motion…… tripped, picked up, butt ended, bloodied face to the floor!
It was so cool!
Man, don’t fuck with them Marine boys.
They’ll getcha! They’ll getcha good!
And that douche bag deserved every one of those stitches he needed to stop the blood flow. Awesome!
But not everything was serious down there
ya know. Listen to this silliness.
We used to have a cleaning utensil room, right.
A closet really. You know, it held brooms, mops, and all that janitorial stuff. (9)
Well, there was always one person in charge of this room. He kept track of all the equipment as it came and went. It was a rule that if you needed something from the room, you had to sign for it.
C'mon, it was so stupid.
What were they gonna do to you if you
signed out a dustpan and didn’t bring it back? Maybe make you clean, even harder!
What assholes these navy people in charge were.
Anyway, the guy in charge of the room at this point was alittle whacky. He was a nice guy.
A little dopey, but overall, pretty cool.
The reason he was put in charge of the room was because he had cut his foot pretty bad. He had a big white bandage, wrapped around his big toe. It kinda looked like a huge thumb.
He couldn’t really do any work, so the powers that be put him in charge of the cleaning room. Couldn’t re-injure his foot in there, right?
Well, that is, except if he decided to piss off Tommy Mondello!
Sniff, sniff, sniff.
Is that EMI I smell coming my way?
It was an accident, man. I’m almost certain, that I didn’t mean to hurt him, just scare him a bit.
Well, what happened was that I went to the room to check something out, maybe a mop, or a broom, I don’t even remember. Dopey looked on his stupid check out sheet, and it showed
that I still had an item checked out.
I just said...
“So fuckin’ what!
Gimmie the fuckin' thing will ya!
I’ll bring them both back together.”
But he didn’t.
This idiot just simply refused to let me take anything out. I mean it’s not like I was checking out a gold-laced dustpan. It was just a janitorial tool, c'mon dude. Snap out of it man!
We went back ‘n forth with this bickering
for a couple minutes, and then I lost it.
I just couldn’t take it anymore.
So, I walked over to the utility shelves
and grabbed a piece of sandpaper.
I then walked back over to Dopey,
who was sitting in a chair at this point
inside the over-sized closet.
I bent down, and grabbed his battered big toe with my left hand. I then brought my right hand down, still grasping the sandpaper, within inches of that fuckin’ battered big toe of his.
I tilted my head up and looked Dopey
right in the eyes and said...
“If you don’t gimmie the fuckin' shit
that I fuckin’ need,
this fuckin’ big toe
is gonna fuckin' get it
but fuckin' good.
Got it!”
(Oh man, I love that word!! LoL)
Now, I don’t think I had any intentions
of actually doing it mind you,
but…… then again, maybe I did?!
That stubborn dopey bastard still refused my request. So, I ripped off the battered big toe bandage and gave that nicely healing scab a few swift rubs with the coarse sandpaper.
And you know what?
That fuckin’ battered big toe began to bleed and ooze like an erupting Mount Saint fucking Helens.
Dopey screamed out……
“OUCH!
OH SHIT!
FUCK!
I CAN’T BELIEVE
YOU JUST FUCKIN’ DID THAT!”
I think I felt bad, for a second!
I can’t quite remember that part though.
I just said...
“Well, you should'a just gave me
what the fuck I needed,
YOU DICK!”
And left the room to continue on with my duties. Oh man, sandpaper to the scabbed up big toe. Pure evil, man! It was just pure evil!
I might’ve gotten 2 spurt hours of EMI
for that move. Yeah, I’m sure I did.
Nuthin’ like a little sandpaper to the scab
to get what you want, huh?
I finally used a skill that I learned in high school, out here in the real world. How to use sandpaper, from my woodshop days! Who said
you’ll never use those high school skills!
Another funny quick one involved Billy,
that douche bag! LoL
(Wait, you'll see why I called him that)
Have you ever had someone volunteer you for something, and not even ask you first? Well, that’s just what he did. And guess what he volunteered us to do? The worst fuckin’ job that there was while working down on the mess deck, tray banging!
No, we didn’t fuck the trays, you morons.
Tray banging was the term used when you
were the losers handling the trays,
after the people finished eating.
They would walk up to the banging booth,(10) and hand you the tray. Then you would have to scrape off all of the disgusting, uneaten food from it, and stack them for the dishwasher guys to pick up.
Tray Bangers, that’s what we were called. Fucking disgusting, man. And I was one of them! Thanx Bill... LoL
It was crazy.
We stood in this little enclosed wooden booth. Kinda like a lemonade stand. But the cutout in the front, only went up to about a person’s chest. So, all we saw all day were legs walking by, handing us trays.
I wanted to kill Billy for getting me into this mess. Why the fuck would he possibly volunteer us for this ridiculous job? I’ll tell ya why!
Because he thought it would be fun!
Could ya just kill’em, or what? LoL
Fuckin’ fun. Fuck fun!
Ya know what fun is?
Getting your dick sucked, while drinking beer, and watching the Giants game! Now that’s fun!
This... not so much!
But’cha gotta lov’em though for the sheer madness he brought to the table! He was a great friend, and still is to this day!
In the beginning, it wasn’t all too bad really. We were actually having fun... so sorry Bill for yelling at you and calling you a douche bag... LoL
But, once the word spread that we were doing the tray banging, funny things began to happen.
Suddenly, there seemed to be a lot more peanut butter, eggs, and anything else that got rock-hard, and stone-like being left on those trays.
All of our so-called friends were loading their trays with all of this sticky shit to fuck with us. Now they... were douche bags!
Well, come to think of it, I would’ve done
the same thing if I were on the opposite side
of the booth!
Actually, as it turned out, we did have a lott'a fun. Damn it, I hate when someone else is right! That usually means that I was, that I was, c'mon I can’t even say it!
Wrong!
Okay, there, I said it! Fuck!
I remember we even put a tip cup out on the ledge, and we began fighting back as well. We’d reach out of the opening in the booth with our corroded, food-covered rubber gloves,
and tried to grab anyone who left us
with globs of peanut butter.
I don’t think we made any money in our tip cup though. Just maybe some left over pieces of food, and a few bottle caps. Them cheap bastards! I can’t believe I was a tray banger! Thanks Bill!
Okay, this last one is pretty funny.
Well okay, it was stupid as well.
But still funny!
This one is for you gamblers out there.
Especially you dice players.
And, take a guess who was involved
in this caper with me?
That’s right,
the volunteer tray banger himself,
Billy.
The plan was conceived while hangin’ out in the mess lounge. This was a decent sized movie theatre with rows of seats, and a big screen.
It was the place where us mess deck
pussy-boys hungout during our breaks. (11)
And, as far as I can remember, the only movie that I ever saw playing in that shit hole was AC/DC’s, Let there be Rock.
A classic rock 'n roll movie for sure, but twenty-four hours a day. Gimmie a break, will ya!
How about some fuckin' James Bond
or something huh!
Anyway, we were lookin’ for a way to get some time off. So we approached that large penis petty officer in charge with a deal. You remember him right... 2 hours spurt spurt... EMI!
And the deal was that if we, both Billy and myself, showed up to muster that next morning as a “7”, that we could have the day off.
That was seven, as in the number 7.
Well, he reluctantly agreed with the deal, even though he thought it would never happen. And also because he had absolutely no idea
what the hell we were talking about.
“What’ta ya mean show up as a 7?”
I think he just agreed with our nutty idea to get the fuck away from us. But little did he know that the fix was already in, ‘cause the dice my friend, were loaded!
Now just listen to how retarded we were. It must have been the sea air or something.
We each took out a clean, well semi-clean white, well semi-white T-shirt. Then using a red magic marker colored in dots on the T-shirts,
that resembled a pair of dice.
We had numbers on both the front and back of the shirt. While coloring in the dots, we made certain that I had a four on my chest, and Billy had a three on his back. Hey, that equals seven!
The next morning, it was time to muster. Now when the mess crew mustered, they did it at one end of the horizontal line of the “H”. (12)
We all remember the “H”, right?
Well, sure enough, just like every other morning muster, the crew was all lined up. A few of the big-wigs of the division were also present standing off to the side. (13) They usually graced us with their presence in the morning. Then, we never saw them the whole rest of the day.
Thank goodness!
Okay, the time had come. It was do or die. Put up or shut up. We walked towards the horizontal “H” line on the opposite side of the ship from where the muster was being held. (14)
Then, as we got about fifteen feet to the horizontal line, we began running at full speed.
