6. Kalikimaka Morning, Napunani Nights

I suppose you do eventually get used to waking up with another man in your room. So used to it in fact, that when your eyes open up before your alarm goes off, once alert, you immediately stand poised to hit that fucker hard and fast so he doesn’t wake up. (The clock. You hit the alarm clock.)

And I should also point out the man in the room is not the first thing you even think about when you wake up. That would be weird, right? No, first, it’s much more normal people thoughts which surface after you slowly regain consciousness from a night of heavy drinking. While looking all around to get your bearings with your head still, eyes moving, you have normal thoughts like these:

Wait! Where am I!?! Who am I!?! Where am I supposed to be right now!?! Holy fuck! I’m so dead! No maybe not! Maybe I’m not supposed to be anywhere. Maybe I’m supposed to be in bed right now. Relax.

Wait! What day is it? Yesterday was… Wednesday! Crap! I’m supposed to be at work today! Shit, shit, shit! No wait! We’re okay! Remember? All that “Mele Kalikimaka” to everyone last night? Yes, it was Christmas Eve yesterday! Yeah, we’re okay; it’s Christmas morning! It’s Kalikimaka morning! It’s a friggen day off!

Wait! Hold on a sec. Is it really a day off? Or do I have duty? I had duty last on Sunday, so… Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… Shit! Fuck! Damn it! I have duty today! Mother fucker! How the fuck did I!?! God damn it!

Wait! Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!!! What time is it!?! Six-twenty-two, stupid! You’re being stupid! The alarm didn’t even go off yet. We’re okay. For now. Shit. Relax. Jesus. All worked up for nothing. Yeah. Wow. Totally awake now. Okay. Eleven hundred and thirty-three days to go.

Don’t worry; that whole Navy where am I, who am I, what is my purpose terror lasts only a split second. Takes way longer to read it than to think it. All those thoughts are all at once, in parallel, instantly, like a flash… then there’s calm. Nothing to worry about. We’re safe and sound in our cozy little misery. We wear it like a snug blanket. It’s a feeling you get used to and find comfort in.

Man, the Navy really gets you conditioned. So very conditioned. And now I was so very conditioned to having that man in my room because it sure felt like a big improvement when compared with how it was back when it all started. Yeah, I’d be waking up to eighty guys in my room stacked two high after some douchebag turned on all the lights and just wouldn’t quit banging on a metal trash can.

Jesus! Get that fucker a Rubbermaid bin already!

So this is fine. Yeah, this was way better. I’m up. The lights are still off. No trash cans coming for me. Sucks that I have duty on my day off, on fucking Christmas of all days, but that’s life in the big Navy. And you know what? That man—say ten feet away from my horizonal, ass-up and spread-eagle, merely skivvy shorts-clad body—does not. We’re not in the same duty section. Lucky fuck can sleep in on Kalikimaka morning. So, we’re ready to bash that fucker the second we hear a noise. (The clock. You bash the alarm clock.) Yeah, I don’t want to wake up that other nearly naked, ass-up, spread-eagle man positioned merely feet away from my previously unconscious body. Let’s keep him knocked out for the time being, okay? It’s better for everyone.

So, I’ll get dressed in the dark too. But I can’t go to work in an inside-out backwards Slayer tee shirt and mismatched socks. No. We’re professional seamen here. Think about it. How can you make precision repairs to a nuclear submarine propulsion plant with one white sock on?

You can’t, shipwreck!

At least that’s how the Chiefs make you feel. Those two black socks and a plain white tee shirt ensure submarine safety, you see? Attention to detail! Yes, it’s those proper socks and tees that will all but guarantee our return home from the pending six-month deployment back to our loved ones (which for me was really just a few pints of Double Black Stout and some strippers).

Understandably, it was really a big deal to wear a white sock or two with your uniform. In fact, back in rotten Groton, we even had these super diggit gate guards down at the barbed wire fenced submarine pier check points doing sock inspections. They issued “stroke chits” for us to hand over to our Chief of the Boat should we be nabbed for any and all uniform infractions.

Well, those diggity gate guards’ stroke chits ended up in the trash on the way to the boat, as the dumb ass diggits relied on the merit system for us to turn the chits over to the Chief of the Boat. Gee, no idea how or why that system failed, I tell ya. But as a Second Class Petty Officer, I more often relied on the “Go fuck yourself Seaman” system so that I wouldn’t have to tell them precisely where to stick their book of stroke chits.

Seamen can’t issue stroke chits to Petty Officers!

The only reason they would even attempt a sock check on me was because you couldn’t see my chevrons in my winter blue jacket and I looked young for my age, like a Seaman Recruit right out of boot camp.

Oddly, this one Third Class Petty Officer on Submarine NR-1 actually did turn two of his lower ranking Seaman-issued stroke chits to the Chief of the Boat this one morning. One for improper socks, one for his jacket not being zipped up to the proper height. Upon viewing the chits, the NR-1 COB immediately put the Third Class Petty Officer in his place regarding the matter:

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with these? Don’t give me this shit anymore!”

There were no sock checks on America’s deepest diving nuclear submarine. We were the elite. Kind of like how the Special Forces could grow beards in Afghanistan. But I was no longer on America’s deepest diving nuclear submarine. I was on the San Fran. And on this ordinary, regular, non-deep diving boat, we had a complete SOB of a COB. That fucker would probably roll around naked in a bed of stroke chits if all his little seamen gave him the satisfaction. It was best to mind my socks.

Now if you also fancy yourself as the type to roll around in a pile of stroke chits over uniform infractions, you’re in luck my friend. The Navy has this overabundance of silly uniform rules, and I’m going to tell you all about them. Imagine the pile of chits you can create with this knowledge! Better start getting undressed and ready to roll. We’ll start with lame ass uniforms themselves, and then move onto that heap of ridiculous rules right afterwards.

In bootcamp, I was issued five different types of seriously silly ass uniforms, and on Submarine NR-1, I picked up a sixth silly one. (Sailors were in the least best dressed branch for sure.) Note that there were other optional uniforms and specialty uniforms out there for sailors, but I’ll stick with the six mandatory uniforms that I had to have ready for the usually announced-at-the-last-minute uniform inspections. Keep in mind that this information was current before the turn of the century. Things have since changed. Half the uniforms I wore are no longer used, and the other half have had extensive alterations made to them.

Alright. The six uniforms of the late 90’s were known as the Cracker Jacks, the Popeyes, the Johnny Cash’s, the Good Humors, the Prisoners, and the Poopysuits. Okay, okay, okay, right. Those are the nicknames for them. Let’s get serious about the silly looking little uniforms here. These silly six were officially known as the Dress Blues, the Dress Whites, the Working Blues, the Working Whites, the Dungarees, and the Coveralls.

With those uniforms, we had four choices of covers. We didn’t have hats in the Navy. We had covers. The four covers available were the Dixie Cup, the Skull Cap, the Cunt Cap, and the Ball Cap. Sorry. Did it again. Let’s be serious about the silliness here once more. The four covers available were the Service Hat, the Watch Cap, the Garrison Cap, and yeah, while the last one is still called the Ball Cap, maybe think baseball not testicles.

Wait, let’s back this up. Service Hat, huh? Yeah, I know, I know. I said that we don’t have hats in the Navy, only covers. Well, I don’t think anyone in the Navy actually knows the Dixie Cup is officially called the Service Hat. I certainly didn’t. So, most sailors will likely correct with cover if you ever say hat. Pretty sure I did back then too. Just pat us on the cover, tell us we’re being a silly little seaman, and move along. Alright, since we’re on the subject of covers, we’ll take the late 90’s uniform details from the top, literally, starting with those covers. Here we go.

(Cover #1 of 4) The Service Hat (aka the Dixie Cup) was adopted in 1886 as a “low rolled brim, high-domed item constructed of canvas.” Not even a cover back then, it was an item. Don’t sit on my item! Anyway, nowadays it’s made out of cotton twill and features a rounded crown and full-stitched brim. And it’s white and perfectly circular when viewed from above. Well, at least they were right out of the Navy Exchange when purchased.

The regulations said not to crush, bend or roll the service hat, but everyone I knew in the Navy rolled, crushed and bent them. I personally pulled on and rolled just the tip on the sides. Made little jester wings. Very salty sailor looking. When I joined the Navy, this cover could be worn with all five uniforms of the time and was actually one of only two covers issued to me.

I don’t know if you can picture it from the description from the regs. I mean it does look like a really short Dixie cup. Or maybe this: If you’re familiar with the TV show Gilligan’s Island, well it kind of looks like Gilligan’s fishing hat if he were to pull the wrap around brim completely up instead of down like it was in the TV show. If you still can’t picture it, have a look of one of the most famous WW2 photos ever taken. No, not the one with the Marines on Iwo Jima raising the flag. The most famous Navy one. You know, the celebrated photo of that sailor who spent his end of the war in Times Square rape-kissing a nurse? War is hell. Anyway, he’s wearing a Dixie cup.

(Cover #2 of 4) The Watch Cap (aka Skull Cap) is a tight-fitting black knit hat that we could only wear with the dungaree uniform in cold weather. Once I transferred to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, I didn’t have any use for it. It was, however, the first uniform cover I wore during boot camp in 1995 at Great Mistakes, Illinois. (Excuse me, Great Lakes, Illinois.) For some reason, I found no issue with going to boot camp an hour north of Chicago… in February. My ears would have surely turned black and fallen off if we wore the Dixie cup instead of this black knit skull cap.

(Cover #3 of 4) The Garrison Cap (aka the Cunt Cap) is basically a cloth version of a flat, paper fast food restaurant hat. You know, the one that you open up to fit on your head somewhat resembling an attempt to get back into the womb? The cunt cap wasn’t issued to me in boot camp because it wasn’t authorized for junior enlisted sailors until 1996.

Officers and Chiefs already had this cover for their khaki colored uniforms, so they had khaki colored cunt caps long before I joined the Navy. But once they spread out the cunt cap for us lowly junior enlisted sailors, ours was black and could only be worn with our working blues. (Chiefs and officers wore the police officer hat styled “Combination Cover” with their working blues, not their khaki cunt caps.) For reasons I’ll state later, junior enlisted scumbags like me didn’t wear cunt caps in Hawaii.

(Cover #4 of 4) The Ball Cap (still the Ball Cap) was my fourth and final cover. It was actually the cover I wore the most once they rolled it out. (I believe was fully adopted around 1998, but we did wear them in limited fashion before that.) All official uniform ball caps were navy blue and either had to say “NAVY” in big yellow lettering or have your ship’s name on it in yellow lettering with a conservative insignia. I suppose that meant professional looking insignia only, which excludes anything on the hat like aircraft nose art or feisty flight patch insignias. You know with skulls and crossbones or lightning bolts or pin up ladies with their perky looking torpedo tits. Yeah, none of that was allowed on your balls.

I never wore a ball cap with just “NAVY” on it. Looked weird to me. Like drinking from a can with “SODA” or “BEER” for a label. No, we don’t want that. So in my case, as an enlisted submarine sailor, my ball cap featured “USS San Francisco” in small yellow lettering curved above a very conservative silver submarine warfare insignia (aka the dolphin insignia) with “SSN-711” also in yellow lettering, but straight and below the dolphin insignia. Obviously if you were on another ship, it would have your ship’s name and hull number, not mine. If you weren’t on a submarine, you wouldn’t have the dolphins on it. (Not that we had actual dolphins on ours either. It was a diesel submarine flanked by two mahi-mahis that we called dolphins.)

If you were on a target, you would have the surface warfare insignia. Flyboys would have the aviator wing insignia (not your flight patch). And if you were an officer, the various insignias would be gold instead of silver. These ball caps were therefore the most personalized official uniform item we had. And I further personalized mine by rolling the brim to the point that upon sight of me, people would ask me for a hit of dip or chew and probably thought I drove a tow truck before joining the Navy. Okay, now onto the actual uniforms.

(Uniform #1 of 6) The Dress Blues (aka the Cracker Jacks) are actually black, not blue, and consist of bell bottom broadfall trousers, a long-sleeve pull-over jumper with a tar flap collar that extends across the back and looks like a mini cape, and a black neckerchief tied into a square knot. The cuffs and the tar flap have three white stripes—or piping—along the edge and there are also two cute little white stars embroidered into the tar flap at the corners. Aww. So cute. With this uniform, the only cover allowed was that circular white Dixie cup.

The Cracker Jacks are the classic sailor suit that most everyone knows. But even if you don’t know them, there’s still a good chance that you were wearing a set in your first ever infant photo shoot. Check your parents’ scrap books. And the reason we called them Cracker Jack’s is that on boxes of that snack, there’s an illustration of a boy and his dog, and that boy is most often depicted wearing US Navy dress blues.

The worst feature of this uniform is the thirteen-button broadfall crotch flap. It’s a real bitch to open up when you need to take a leak in a hurry. If you’re drinking in this uniform, you’ll definitely want to do the one-two-skip-a-few method of broadfall buttoning. Only people up to no good and Chiefs will be looking at your crotch, so what’s a few missing black-on-black buttons, really?

(Uniform #2 of 6) The Dress Whites (aka the Popeyes) of the 90’s were similar to the Cracker Jacks with several exceptions. The jumper top was blindingly bright white and featured wide, cuffless sleeves with no piping, and the tar flap also had no piping or stars. The bell-bottom trousers were blindingly bright white as well and had more modern technology than the dress blues, equipped with a regular zipper crotch to free Willy and wee freely instead of having a thirteen button broadfall pee-pee blocker. We wore the same black neckerchief tied in a square knot and the white Dixie cup cover as we wore with the dress blues.

Without the cuffs, broadfall, buttons, piping and stars, the Popeyes were not as fancy looking as the Cracker Jacks. These actually evolved from the “Undress Whites” of yore. Before the working blues and working whites, there were undress blues and undress whites for working. For some reason they dropped the dress whites, kept the undress whites with a little renaming action, but then kept the dress blues and dropped the undress blues. Such incongruency!

Popeye the Sailor Man wore various color combinations of Navy jumper top and bellbottom type uniforms in comics, cartoons and live action movies, but in the cartoon version I grew up with, his uniform was just like my undress white styled dress whites.

The worst feature of the Popeyes? There’s nothing too, too bad about them. The color was one of the worst things since you really didn’t want to sit down on or brush up against anything. They also had this weird underwear blocking liner for those nearly translucent trousers—but that liner only went down mid-thigh and actually looked like visible underwear.

Look at that seaman over there! He’s wearing skivvies! I can see his skivvies!

I mean, what was the point of the liner? It’s like if you were naked and didn’t want anyone to see your teeny-weeny wiener, so you decide to cover it up… but then you cover it up with a picture of your pecker. Yeah, okay, sure I guess. Weirdo.

Anyway, honestly, I’d say the worst thing about putting on your Popeye’s wasn’t anything about the uniform itself. It was just that when you were wearing your enlisted dress whites, the officers were wearing their own dress whites. And that’s a major problem. You see, the US Navy officer dress whites are in my opinion, pretty much the best-looking uniform out there (or possibly second best after the US Marine’s enlisted Blue Dress A’s). So, no matter how decent looking the Navy enlisted dress whites were, we lowly enlisted just looked so unbelievably silly next to the amazingly stylish officers.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Just go watch the end of An Officer and a Gentleman to see those snazzy officer dress whites. The uniform made the scene work so well that even the actual factory workers who were extras in the film ended up, without direction, crying and clapping with sheer joy upon sight of a naval officer in his spiffy dress whites sweeping their fellow factory coworker lady off her feet.

Now imagine if that freshly minted officer Ensign Zack Mayo was instead a Seaman Recruit in his Popeye styled sailor suit. Yeah, that movie ending would have been a complete disaster no matter how loudly they cranked up the killer instrumental version of Up Where We Belong. Way to go Paula, way to go! (You just hitched yourself to someone named “Seaman Mayo” and he wears a tiny little cape to work.)

(Uniform #3 of 6) The Working Blues (aka the Johnny Cash’s) were all black. I mean totally, totally, totally black, and totally fitting for their namesake’s man in black. Black shoes, black socks, black pants, black belt, black button-up long-sleeve collared shirt, black tie, and from 1996 on, we could even wear the black cunt cap with it. The other authorized cover was the white Dixie cup, but that just looked utterly ridiculous with it.

Working blues were arguably the sharpest and most professional looking enlisted Navy uniform at the time I was in, particularly with a few brightly colored ribbons, a silver tie clip, a sliver belt buckle, red chevrons, white rating badge, and white crow. (Like the “dolphin” misnomer, what we called a “crow” wasn’t actually a crow, but a perched eagle with spread wings located above the chevrons and rating badge.) Yes, they were definitely the sharpest looking enlisted Navy uniform provided that you weren’t wearing the Dixie cup cover. So of course, I wasn’t authorized to wear Johnny Cash’s in Hawaii. (Not that I’d really want to wear a dark wool outfit in the hot Hawaiian sun.)

(Uniform #4 of 6) The Working Whites (aka the Good Humors) were the worst. They’re nowhere near as eye catching as the Cash’s. I’ve mentioned these in the first chapter while waiting at the airport for the duty driver who would look like either Popeye (if in dress whites) or someone who might be approached for a vanilla cone and a rocket popsicle (if in working whites). Yes, with the pure white short-sleeve shirt, exposed white undershirt with no tie, white pants, white belt and black shoes, we looked like the damn ice cream man.

C’mon kid, the line starts over there. No cutting.

On top of that, literally, the only cover option was the Dixie cup. While the Dixie cup cover looked fine with Cracker Jacks and Popeyes, it looked positively stupid with this more modern styled office “I work at headquarters” type uniform. Really stupid. It had the same drawback of the Popeyes of being so blindingly bright white that you didn’t want to sit on anything not made of ivory or pure white marble or cumulus clouds. Plus, the uniform was just boring to look at (after buying your generous serving of pistachio, I suppose). Even the chevrons, rating badge and crow were bland, monotone dark blue. This was just a bad uniform, so naturally I had to wear it here in Pearl Harbor somewhat frequently.

(Uniform #5 of 6) The Dungarees (aka Prisoners) were introduced in 1913 and consisted of a light blue chambray button up collared shirt with long-sleeve and short-sleeve options; dark blue denim bell-bottom trousers; white tee shirt, exposed at the unbuttoned collar; black, low-top, steel-tipped “boondocker” boots; black web belt with silver buckle; and the Dixie cup cover. In frigid weather, we were authorized to wear the black knit watch cap, which I did frequently in rotten Groton.

In this uniform, particularly with the skull cap, we truly looked like old-school prison inmates, before they switched to those bright orange jumpsuits. Yeah, we were like unpaid extras roaming the yard in Clint Eastwood’s Escape from Alcatraz flick.

Now if wearing the Dixie cup instead of the watch cap, this dungaree uniform was quite possibly an even more iconic Navy uniform than the Cracker Jacks. I suppose because the Navy wanted enlisted scumbags like me to look and feel pretty damn degraded and not at all like an anti-hero protagonist in the movie of life, once they officially adopted the ball cap as a uniform item, they took away the classic Dixie cup from the dungarees and made us wear the ball caps with them. So much for tradition.

I dunno. The ball cap was more practical for sure, but I didn’t think it worked well with the bell-bottoms. I’m no Fashion Institute of Technology graduate, but in my opinion, the ball caps were too modern looking to go with the old school flared trousers. Yeah, I thought the Dixie cup just looked right with the dungarees. Definitely a classic combination. Like we were all busted for some shore leave bar brawl incident in our dress blues and had to chip paint on the weekends in our dungarees and Dixie cups as punishment. People would probably pay to see that movie, but not so if we were wearing ball caps.

You can probably tell that I was partial to this prisoner’s uniform, but it did have one terrible feature. Not as bad as the button up broadfall crotch flap of the Cracker Jack’s or insta-stain nature of the Popeyes, but still pretty bad. By far, the worst feature of the dungarees was that it basically had four back pockets. Two in the back, where they do belong, and two in the front, where they most definitely don’t.

We used to joke that they were accidentally sewn on by blind workers hired for charity and tax break purposes, and the Navy brass just went with it as to not hurt anyone’s feelings. But then we were stuck with those front pockets that were those really annoying “patch” pockets instead of the more useful “slash” pockets of regular jeans. Other than that, I was a total diggit for dungarees.

(Uniform #6 of 6) The Coveralls (aka Poopysuits) were super, duper comfy dark blue zip-up jumpsuits with a black web belt for enlisted sailors (khaki for chiefs and officers), silver buckle (gold for the officers), and black boondocker boots (sneakers while underway). Rank insignia and warfare “pin” were typically sewn right onto your poopysuit, but you could use dull grey pewter or highly polished chrome-like pin-on devices instead. The cover option was always the ball cap. Poopies didn’t get Dixies.

These coveralls weren’t an official uniform when I joined but were adopted as the official underway uniform for submarines in, I think 1998 with the original name being “submarine coveralls.” (They were subsequently stolen by the surface wienies to wear onboard their targets at a later date, so “submarine coveralls” eventually became just “coveralls.”) It’s pretty much the official at-sea uniform across the fleet now. (Due note that Submarine NR-1 was using poopysuits and ball caps underway well before 1998.)

As for the coverall’s “poopysuit” nickname, I have no idea where that came from other than perhaps you might shit yourself if you had to drop a deuce on the double. I mean, considering your shirt is basically sewn to the top of your pants, think about that the next time you have an abrupt gastrointestinal situation. Try taking your shirt off before pulling down your pants. Might make it. Might not. And that of course is poopysuit’s worst feature.

I suppose if there was ever a need for a broadfall in a Navy uniform, it would be on this one—but in the rear of course. Call it a buttfall perhaps? Oh, and it definitely can’t have those thirteen fucking buttons on it! Oof! Yeah, no buttons! Seriously! Because sometimes after eating those disgustingly delicious mushy meat ravioli midnight rations, you really need to hit the head in the most immediate fashion possible. I’d say if they issued a poopysuit with a Velcro buttfall, it would be the ideal submarine uniform.

Okay, that about covers the six uniforms. If you remember them, we can move onto the rules. You remember them, right? The Dress Blues & Dress Whites, the Working Blues & Working Whites, and the Dungarees & Coveralls? Okay good. You’re probably sitting there all naked, just waiting to issue all those stroke chits to those poor little seamen, aren’t you? I knew it. I fucking knew it.

Well you’re not going to issue any chits to me. While standing in front of the closet trying not to wake up the man in the room and about to select a uniform to put on in the dark, I knew the rules. So which uniform would I choose? It’s a process of elimination really.

The first rule is the seasonal rule. You wear the blues in Autumn and Winter, and you wear the whites in Spring and Summer. Since it was Kalikimaka morning (or Christmas to you non-kama’aina types), obviously you wear your blues. Obviously. But no, wait! We were in the tropics! And in the tropics, there are no seasons! So, there is no seasonal rule. Therefore, you have to wear your whites all year round.

Unless of course you didn’t want to. If you didn’t want to wear your whites, you were allowed to wear your dress blues all year round. Basically in Hawaii, I could wear my dress blues, dress whites or working whites. These seasonal/tropical rules only meant I was not allowed wear my killer looking Johnny Cash working blues and the cunt cap under any circumstances. Figures, right?

Perhaps I should also add a little caveat concerning that “all year round” rule regarding the dress uniforms. That’s if you weren’t working. You’re not supposed to work in your dress uniforms. That’s why the working uniforms exist. So, was I standing there in front of the closet about to grab the silly looking working white Good Humors? I was going to work in the tropics, so the working whites were the natural choice, no? No!!! Thank little baby Jesus on his birthday, no!

There were further rules regarding work and working uniforms. Your uniform should be in inspection ready condition at all times, so if your work was actual work where you may soil said uniform, you are not permitted to work in that particular working uniform. Since I worked in an Engine Room, it was not a good idea to show up for work in your working whites. This wasn’t due only to the possibility of soiling your little Good Humors, but could you imagine the look on Queen La Chiefa’s face if I reported for duty in the Engine Room in a set of my pristine brightie whities?

I’m gonna go change that oil in the brine pump now, Chief. And do you want me to grease anything up while I’m down there? I can’t find any rags, but that’s what they invented pants for, am I right?

Oh man! I’d love to wander around the boat and base in a set of working whites with all sorts of black grease streaks all over them. It would probably be worth the punishment I’d surely be awarded to see La Chiefa’s face. Anyway, aside from the possibility—or inevitability really—of soilage, you weren’t allowed to wear the pure white uniforms in the Engine Room. Nope. In the Engine Room, you had to wear long sleeve, fire retardant uniforms.

Therefore, there are no dudes in the Engine Room in their Good Humors (flammable/short sleeves), or their Popeye’s (flammable synthetic fibers), or their Johnny Cash’s (not fire retardant enough, which I’d actually prove a bit later on not only light up quickly but burn green!) or their short sleeve prisoner uniforms. This left only the long sleeve version of the dungarees and the coveralls, right? Yes, except that the coveralls weren’t yet an official uniform. So, dungarees it was.

Okay, how about my cover? That one was pretty easy. No watch cap because it was nice and warm in Hawaii in December. No cunt caps because it wasn’t authorized for use with the prisoners, plus we didn’t switch to the blues here anyway. And no ball caps because they weren’t totally authorized yet. The Dixie cup it was.

Through the process of elimination, I had my uniform of the day. A set of dungarees, complete with light blue, long sleeve, fire retardant chambray shirt, dark blue patch pocket denim bellbottoms, low-top steel-toe black leather boondockers, circular white twill Dixie cup, and of course with a crisp, white cotton tee shirt and two black socks made out of some sort of material that somehow does nothing to absorb any sweat whatsoever and sort of felt like wearing two plastic bags on my feet. I really missed those nice sets of white cotton sweat-wicking socks! Fortunately, I had on the underwear of my choosing. The Navy couldn’t take it all away from me.

Fully dressed, on time and with Andy, that snoring big boy in my room, undisturbed on this Kalikimaka morning, I was out the door on my way to work with a Royal Mills iced cappuccino can in hand. Once out that door, I had to put my cover on. Another rule. We had to wear our cover outdoors at all times. Indoors, you always had to take your cover off. Unless the ceiling was eleven feet or higher, in which case you had to wear it. Unless you were inside a ship. Then it’s up to you. Unless you were on the Mess Deck. Then you had to take your cover off no matter how high the ceiling was.

Why do we take our covers off on the Mess Deck? I myself asked that very same question after being snapped at when failing to do while passing through the Mess Deck for the first time. I mean, we took our covers off in the galley on base because we were indoors. And I even get taking off your cover if you sit down to eat, as I remember my parents telling me to take my hat off in a restaurant as a kid, which was habit forming. But here I was a young adult in uniform on the submarine merely passing through the Mess Deck on my way to the Engine Room. What’s the big deal? I’m not sitting down to eat. Why do I have to remove my cover, and why are you so mad at me for not doing so?

“IT’S TO SHOW RESPECT FOR THE DEAD!”

The natural follow up question was to ask them, what exactly were they putting in the midrats that the quantity of sailors dying on the Mess Deck was so great that we had to remove our hats to show them some respect? I was again corrected. They said it wasn’t due to the midnight rations, although I remained skeptical. They said it was because in wartime, the Mess Deck becomes the hospital. Right.

Considering that unlike the previous USS San Francisco (CA-38)—one of the most highly decorated vessels of World War Two—this particular USS San Francisco (SSN-711) had never been to war. Therefore, her Mess Deck had never been converted to a triage center, and I still figured this whole show respect for the dead here thing was because the food was so bad that we too would all soon die from eating it. It was merely a matter of time.

While waiting around to die from midrat poisoning, it should be noted that it is actually advantageous for sailors to remove their covers. You see, when sailors remove their covers, unlike when soldiers remove their hats, the sailors no longer have to salute officers. That’s right. Unlike the in Army, in the Navy, you only salute if you’re covered. (Maybe the dead hate naval officers?) So, show respect for the dead by not showing respect for your superiors! Now that’s a solid rule I can get behind.

Well, that covers the rules for the covers. Let’s pick off a few more random, easy uniform rules and get them out of the way. Okay, you can’t lean against anything like a wall or a post while in uniform lest you look like the slacker you are (plus you don’t want to soil your whites). You can’t hold hands with your girlfriend or wife or wife’s girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or therapist or emotional support spider-monkey. Hands to yourself or on whatever you’re handling, like a backpack.

If you did have a backpack, you had to carry it with your left hand like a saggy little suitcase because you weren’t allowed to strap it to your back and needed your right hand to salute. When carrying a sea bag, now that you had to fully strap onto your back. You can’t wear it with one strap on and one strap off for convenience or to look cool. If you were holding a can of soda (or Royal Mills iced cappuccino like me) and wanted to take a swig, you had to come to a complete stop in order to do so.

No sipping and stepping, shipwreck! That’s as unprofessional as wearing your little pink Hello Kitty backpack with one strap dangling!

Now let’s discuss the location-based uniform rules. You already know you can wear your working whites anywhere on base, off base, and on the ship. Except in the Engine Room. Not allowed to wear your working whites in the Engine Room due to the material not being fire retardant plus the fact that you had to have long sleeves in the Engine Room. That’s pretty much made the working white uniforms restricted to office work (if you can call that work). Like I said, you already know this.

You also already know you can wear the dungaree uniform on the ship, even in the Engine Room and on base, but what you may not have known is that you can’t wear dungarees off base. That’s right. Dungarees can be worn on the ship or on the base, but never off the base. Except to drive to work. You can wear them traveling from home to work in a car as long as you don’t stop anywhere before getting onto base. Unless you are running out of gas. Then you can stop for gas off base if you pay at the pump. But if you can’t pay at the pump, you could pay for it inside in order not to be stealing their gasoline. And since you’re inside now to pay for your not stolen gasoline, you can pick up some of the groceries they sell there. But it can only be one day’s worth of food and not like a week’s worth. (No, I am not making this up. Those were actual rules.)

This was because the general public was not supposed to peep the prisoners with their innocent little virgin eyes. (I suppose local civilians around the base were a special class of the general public trusted to detect the dungarees at service stations.) But since the locals might peep a set of prisoners in public if you were about to run out of gas and were mere hours (but not days) away from starving, the dungarees must be inspection ready at all times. So, when you’re in the Engine Room, you shouldn’t be performing any dirty work in your dungarees because you are forbidden to get your set soiled.

Are you wearing dirty dungarees, shipwreck!?! What if you run out of sustenance!?! Stroke chit!

If you were going to do actual soil producing work, then you should have really worn a poopysuit. This was because when I joined the Navy, they were not an official uniform. They were just a set of coveralls that the Chief handed out to us so we wouldn’t get our dungarees dirty. We could wear the poopysuits in the Engine Room and soil them up all nice and nasty. This was fine because they never had to be inspection ready as they weren’t officially a uniform.

But of course, since you were allowed to actually get them dirty, you couldn’t wear them off the ship. Except to go to a maintenance facility. I mean, that would be silly changing every time you ferried parts between the Engine Room and the repair facility deep, deep, deep into the base in a restricted area full of nuclear secrets and devoid of public people. Yeah, that would be like making a waiter change clothes every time he or she walked from the kitchen to the dining room with a tray of food.

But even that logic was frowned upon by the brass. They really couldn’t have a bunch of sailors tooling around the sensitive parts of the base in an outlaw, non-uniform uniform, now could they? God only knows what we enlisted scumbags would do with all that freedom going to our heads! It could lead to sedition or mutiny! So, the brass made them an official uniform in 1998 to preclude such open rebellion.

Yet even after they became a bona fide real official uniform, you could only wear them to oddly specific locations. Like four places in general total. On a ship, in the barracks, in the Naval Exchange minimart, and in the maintenance facilities. They did, however, most generously permit straight-line walks between those locations while wearing your poopysuit. Venturing to other places on base was verboten and poopies were never permitted to be worn off base—not even in your car driving to and from home if you lived off base.

What if you need gas in your poopysuit, shipwreck!?!

I do suppose there’s no law against getting gas in your underwear, so there is a work around solution right there, but I digress. Anyway, now while you could wear your submarine coveralls walking from the barracks to your ship and vice versa, you most definitely couldn’t stop at a fast food restaurant, such as the Burger King that you pass right by on the way back to the barracks. (Fortunately, they didn’t make you crawl below the line-of-sight of the restaurant windows.) However, if you were about to starve to death, you could stop at the minimart adjacent to the barracks for one day’s worth of food.

Yes, you could go into that minimart in your coveralls. But do note that once inside the minimart, don’t even think about going to the take-out only Subway sandwich shop. Yes, it was right inside that minimart you’re allowed to go inside of, and yes it wasn’t even partitioned off from the minimart as it was built into the right-side wall as soon as you walked in, and yes you just had to bump past all the seamen in their dungarees and working whites in the Subway line while you perused the potato chip and pretzel aisle of the minimart for dinner right across from them, but I am telling you, don’t even think about getting a submarine sandwich at that Subway, you shipwreck! Just think about it. You can go inside the submarine in your poopysuit, but the submarine can’t go inside you in your poopysuit. Got it? It’s simple logic.

But wait! What if those people at the Subway you bumped by actually saw you in your dirty ass poopysuit!?! Not buying a sandwich doesn’t make you 100% invisible. You might be spotted! You might be soiled! Oh yeah, no worries. I forgot to mention that once the poopysuits became “Submarine Coveralls” and deemed by the brass to be an actual, bonified, honest-to-goodness, official uniform, they too had to be inspection ready. So you can buy your dinner (aka a giant bag of Doritos) without fear of showing them any of your stains since you were no longer allowed to have stains on them. Problem solved.

Fucking hell, coveralls had to be inspection ready now too? Yes. No joke. Well, son of a bitch, how the fuck are we supposed to work in the Engine Room if we can no longer get grease on our coveralls? Simple, really. Once the poopysuits became actual uniforms, we just started wearing these unauthorized olive drab jumpsuits we called greenies while working…

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. This was Kalikimaka morning in 1997, so it would be a few months before the poopysuit and greenie jumpsuit battles with the brass escalated to such a degree that only a six-month deployment could prevent the total breakdown of military order and discipline. No, at this point in time, things were simpler, and I was simply heading to the boat in my nice crisp set of dungarees topped off with the classic white Dixie cup and Royal Mills iced cappuccino in hand.

The long sleeve shirt was required for work in the Engine Room, but of course I rolled up the sleeves. (It gets hot in paradise.) Ordinarily I’d be on the lookout for a hidden Chief to chew me out for such blatant fabric rolling insubordination, but on Christmas morning, I was carefree. Chiefs have kids. Kids have mothers. Mothers have their husband Chiefs assigned extra duty in the house on Christmas morning. They couldn’t be on sock and sleeve patrol on their day off no matter how much they wanted to be. So I’m not rolling these fuckers down for the walk to the boat in the tropics. Not today! Hell no, and not only that, I’m not even coming to a complete stop to take a sip of my iced cappuccino!

Yes, I was carefree this Kalikmaka morning. So carefree in fact, I broke more than the two rules mentioned above. For example, I didn’t even take the garbage out of my barracks room. Like wearing Navy uniforms, living in the Navy barracks had rather particular sets of rules invented by those pencil neck Navy pricks. Once such rule of barracks life is that garbage cans have to be completely empty and totally clean at all times. How can they be completely empty and totally clean if you put your dirty stinking garbage in them, shipwreck!?! You don’t want the Russians to defeat us, do you? Because that’s how the Russians defeat us in a post-Cold War era. For fuck’s sake, noob! Repeat after me:

Garbage cans are for inspections, not for garbage.

Got it? It’s quite simple, and everyone knows it. Fucking noobs, I swear. And everyone knows that the garbage goes in a plastic bag that you hang on a doorknob and take with you each time you leave the barracks. Yeah, don’t even think about leaving garbage unattended in your room! Since this gives aid and comfort to the Russians, those are clearly thoughts of sedition.

There were of course other things you could do in your barracks that would give the Russians an advantage in our intricate global game of chess. So, in order keep them at least one step behind us, we have daily room inspections. But fear not, these take place while you’re working on the boat and without witnesses as to not inconvenience you or anyone else. Oh, and those stroke chits get delivered right to your ship. Another convenience for you, you lucky son of a bitch. Now, what other actions and inactions could swing the advantage over to the former commies?

Not making your rack should be quite an obvious one. The Russian loves a messy bed. Yeah, so your rack had to be made at all times (when not in it). That’s why we never sleep under the covers. No, we sleep on top of the covers and pull them tight in the morning so that they’re inspection ready. The smart seaman set up is to have a spare pillow and blanket that get thrown in the closet upon waking up.

Speaking of closets, they had to be locked at all times, along with your drawers. Unlocked closets and drawers were a sign of communism. Do you not believe in private property? Do you want to share your belongings with each according to their needs? I might add that locked capitalist closets and drawers actually had an enormous advantage besides not having things taken by the dirty, stinking proletariat. Locked locks meant the inspector couldn’t inspect the contents of your closets and drawers, or the manner in which the contents were stored. Since you couldn’t leave anything adrift in your barracks like pants on a doorknob or a sock on the floor, everything should be thrown into the closet and locked, safe and sound from the commies.

Then there’s the issue of contraband. Any contraband found in your barracks room will result in confiscation and possibly a stroke chit. What is contraband? Unofficially, it’s anything you leave out in your room instead of locked in a closet or drawer. If you left your top of the line 1990’s compact disc player on the nightstand, for all practical purposes, that seemed to constitute contraband when you take into account how many sailors claimed that inspectors swiped valuables during inspections while they were on the boat.

Of course, you had recourse. Sailors can always petition their chain of command. For example, you could report that a personal belonging went missing during a room inspection. Justice was always swift. You were immediately found guilty of not locking up your valuables and would be awarded the appropriate punishment. Hopefully you learned your lesson before buying a new CD player.

While the definition of contraband in practice appeared to be valuables left out unlocked, officially, I believe contraband was simply anything that fell into these two categories: weapons or drug paraphernalia. Since we were in the military, we obviously couldn’t be trusted with weapons. So, if you left your Rambo hunting knife out, for example, it would be confiscated and you’d be in a heap of trouble. If you brought a gun into your barracks, no joke, you’d end up in the brig for a long time. Like I said, you can’t trust people in the military with weapons, especially guns. That’s would be crazy, right? Obviously only cops and criminals should be allowed to have guns, not military personnel or law-abiding citizens.

As far as drug paraphernalia went, it extended beyond the drugs themselves and any device or implement or object needed for the drug hiding, the drug taking, and the drug making. You see, in the Navy, anything remotely related to drugs meant it was paraphernalia. Even a sticker with a pot leaf on it was considered drug paraphernalia. So, don’t even think about leaving your Bob Marley Catch a Fire album out in the open! Confiscation! Stroke chits! Big trouble for you, shipwreck!

How about rules for your bathroom and kitchen? Yeah, they had those too of course. Shower curtains were obsessed over in a peculiar manner. They always had to be pulled across the entire length of the bathtub and never bunched in a corner. Like the tile walls, they had to be squeegeed dry after showering, as waterdrop stains are for communists. Obviously, no mildew whatsoever was allowed to accumulate on the curtains. To make it easier for the inspector to see that you were cleaning the mildew as prescribed, the Navy specified that you may only install either plain white or clear shower curtains in your barracks bathroom.

The lighting in these barracks bathrooms had always been dismal, so I figured a nice clear shower curtain would let in some precious extra light for soaping up. That seemed like quite the practical upgrade to me to ensure creating a nice lather in all the appropriate locations. Then after hanging a set, I realized I do indeed have another man in my room who does in fact live with me. Yes, it was kind of awkward to explain to my shipmate roommate why I replaced the white shower curtain with a see-through one.

Hey sailor!

Definitely suspect, yes, and perhaps a tactical error, but c’mon think about it. The white one was old, worn and stained into a nondescript color somewhere between grey and pink. What is that hue even called? Grink? Like, do we want to chance failing a room inspection over that dirty ass grink shower curtain and then become recipients of a stroke chit? I don’t think so. And I mean, don’t you just love all the extra light this shiny new clear one lets in? Also: we can watch each other shower when we go pee-pee now.

As far as the room’s kitchen went, there were no rules. Wait! How can this be!?! Quite simple really. There were no barracks room kitchen rules because there were no kitchens in the barracks rooms. How can you have a rule for something you don’t have? Wait. Actually, the pencil neck pricks probably could make rules for imaginary items. Don’t tempt those fuckers.

Each floor did have a common kitchen area, but across all the years in the Navy and bases I had been stationed, I used a common kitchen exactly, hmm, let me see… zero times. Not a once. So I can’t speak to the rules there, although no doubt there were a shit ton of common kitchen rules to follow in order to use one to whip a little something up to shove right down into your pie hole. That much is certain. Honestly, you should really just go get one of those tiny little pizzas at the minimart. You can even wear your poopysuit to purchase one.

So, what barracks room rule did I deem the worst? Well, I didn’t really care about the drug “paraphernalia” rules as I hadn’t yet done any drugs (other than booze, which of course is a perfectly legal drug and pretty much encouraged in our society). I didn’t own any weapons, so that one was moot. I didn’t cook. (Unless you consider boiling things cooking.) Therefore, the lack of individual kitchens or the rules for the common kitchen were no big deal to me. Making the bed (or in my case, tightening the bed) and taking out the trash daily were only minor inconveniences.

To be honest, I’m not even sure if I actually had daily room inspections as I lived in Paquet Hall, which was for First and Second Class Petty Officers. (The San Fran’s Third Classes and Seamen lived in Seawolf Tower and most definitely received daily inspections.) Not that I would admit it at the time, but there wasn’t anything too, too bad about the barracks rules I’ve mentioned so far. Not great, but not the end of the world as they were really only there to make sure you were keeping the place clean and orderly. However, this one rule…

Yes, there was one rule I haven’t mentioned yet that I found rather unsettling, particularly for my future. A future I hoped to have sooner rather than later. This line in the sand rule was that you were not allowed to have guests stay overnight with you, particularly the ladies. (If you did that, you may as well be selling secrets to the North Koreans while you’re at it, you traitor!)

All visitors had to be logged, and they had to leave by a certain time. I forget the exact certain time. Could have been 8pm, 10pm, midnight… I’m not really sure, but the point is that they definitely could not stay through the night. There was a logbook in the “quarterdeck” lobby to sign in and sign out the guest. Your room could be spot checked if noises emanating from it suggested visitors who were not signed in, and also spot checked if a guest failed to sign out of the log after everyone was required to leave the premises.

This was the one rule I found absolutely incompatible with the near future I sought. While I didn’t yet have anyone to break this rule with, I still found it to be a tragedy, a grave injustice, a denial of humanity, something intolerable that simply could not stand. One day I will have someone to break this rule with, you’ll see! And besides, it shouldn’t even be a rule to have to be broken in the first place. There were plenty of motorcycle rules to break. I didn’t need any more. So why are we fucking with the ladies here? It was maddening. So much injustice to obsess over.

I had pretty long walk to the San Fran this Kalikimaka morning to think of such unpleasant thoughts. We hadn’t pulled into that Quarry Loch close to Paquet Hall this time. No, we were on the far side of Magazine Loch, then around the corner and down a bit. These lochs were kind of like inverted piers. Instead of building a pier out into the harbor, it seemed to me as though they dug straight channels from the harbor into the land to increase the harbor’s surface area. Lots of space to park the nuclear submarines, and lots of distance to walk around. Going around Magazine Loch made my walk about a mile, which left me a bit of time alone in my unpleasant thoughts.

I don’t want to wake up every day with a man in my room. I’d much prefer a woman there instead! I like women. Women are nice. How the hell do I get out of these barracks with their stupid no overnight ladies rules!?!

I could come up with no solution to my quandary other than marriage. That was the only way I knew of that allowed enlisted scumbags like me to move off base. But I had zero desire to get married. Besides, I’m pretty sure you don’t go from “I just banged a hooker named Treasure” to “You know what, I think it’s about time I settled down” without a few steps in between there.

Yeah, clearly there’s an activity or two betwixt such statements. Like maybe a dinner date, perhaps an unauthorized sleepover or two, and there could even be a nice little road trip on the motorbike in there as well. Then you can get married and move off base. But obviously, step one would have to be finding an actual lady of your own to do those all those other steps. And this was Oahu; I’d probably have to court a tourist from a bar with somewhere around ten to one odds. Nah, I wasn’t going to wed my way out of living with that man in my room, that’s for sure. Yet another reason to get the fuck out of the Navy in eleven hundred and thirty three days!

But I had to stop dwelling on such unpleasant thoughts, particularly on this Kalikimaka morning. I didn’t need an ulcer over something I couldn’t do anything about at the moment. Figured I should be thinking calming, happy thoughts during my morning commute instead. Nice calming happy thoughts. And I actually had some. There was the fact that I was roughly a month away from my midway point of my enlistment. Almost halfway done with this shit! That’s still kind of negative though. Okay, I hated the Navy, but think about this: It was exactly because of this Navy I hated that I possessed my most cherished happy thought in all of my existence:

I’m now a world traveler!

I was! All because of the Navy, I had wandered with wide eyes the streets of La Maddalena, Palau, Naples, Sorrento, Rome, Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Gibraltar—and holy hell, after all that, they had just stationed me in this Hawaiian paradise! It’s the least miserable thing that could happen to twenty-one year old punk such as myself. And now we were gearing up for another six-month deployment where we may be pulling into as many as five new-to-me countries and probably twice as many cities throughout the Pacific. Why not focus on such thoughts instead of getting all worked up about the large snoring man in my room I could do nothing about?

Another happy thought I soon discovered was a lack of anything to bitch about when I got to the boat. They took it easy on us. Duty on Christmas? Yeah, they took it real easy on us. We weren’t given any work assignments aside from our normal six hours on, six hours off watch-standing duties. We had a nice big fat turkey dinner with all the sides we could possibly stuff inside our insides, and we burned a few flicks afterwards while we fought off food comas. We all had a very Mele Kalikimaka indeed.

In fact, I felt a sense that, despite how miserable it could be in the Navy, some of the brass had more than a touch of humanity in them and actually cared about their enlisted scumbags. Wait. I got all that out of a turkey dinner and a couple of movies? You’re probably thinking,

“What exactly is going on here? Does the Navy put drugs in those turkeys for you to go along so easily or something? This is suspect.”

No, I don’t believe they do. I mean, maybe, but no, I don’t think so. It’s just that when you feel like you’re mired in a giant pile of shit, sometimes a nice little gesture is given to nudge you into thinking that that maybe you don’t really have it all that bad.

Hey, at least it’s not up to my mouth yet. It does smell really bad, sure, but you know, I can still actually breathe!

Maybe all it takes to think that way is a nice meal and a movie or two to make you reflect on what’s good. Think about these things: I had guaranteed food, shelter, clothing; I was the recipient of an advanced education which allowed me to perform highly skilled tasks worth a fortune on the other side; and I was fulfilling my dream of traveling the world. Was the Navy really that bad?

No, not really. Couldn’t wait to get out, but the Navy wasn’t really as bad as I made it out to be. Maybe the drug infused turkey meat made me a softy. Or maybe it was the two week Christmas stand down I was enjoying. The stand down meant for the week of Christmas and New Year’s, there were no work days. We only had to come in for our 24-hour duty shifts, which for me was every fourth day.

Duty sucks, but this “tip-of-the-spear” warship had to be manned and ready to go to sea at all times. That meant one quarter of the crew had to be on her at any given moment. I mean, we did kind of have a nuclear reactor and a pile of torpedoes and cruise missiles onboard. Those suckers really shouldn’t be left unattended when you think about it. Therefore, we had to be there for our duty days, nothing we could do about that, but the brass definitely didn’t have to give us all the days off in between. This was pretty much as good as it gets.

But was it? Actually, no, it wasn’t. You see, that was 1997 thinking. Turns out 1998 was going to get a lot better for me. I would learn this as early as a couple of weeks out from that very Mele Kalikimaka meal. This moment of discovery was after the stand down had concluded and we returned to the regular schedule with overlapping four-section duty and standard work weeks. My first clue was during a typical morning muster. You know the drill. It’s a familiar scene.

A slew of Machinist’s Mates in dungarees huddling around one guy in khakis, Chief Queen of course, right by the starboard Main Engine. Ugly, yet calming seafoam green eye pollution everywhere you looked. High pitch vent fan whining coming from all around us everywhere filling our ears. Sporadic bursts of deadly poisonous gas released. Sailors with day after stubble and bloodshot eyes trading their contagious yawns. You know, the usual morning ritual when the boat is in port.

Queen La Chiefa was droning on and on and on. Systems statuses. Maintenance assignments. Random ship’s announcements. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything he was saying. My mind had drifted off, but then I swore I heard him say something that partially penetrated my thick skull, piqued my curiosity, and perked me right up.

Wait, what did Queen La Chiefa just say?

I snapped out of my daze, but it was too little, too late. In my confusion, I wondered if I heard those sentence fragments correctly. I figured, yeah no, there was no way I heard him correctly. What I thought I heard him say was far too good to be true, that’s for sure. Plus, when I looked around to see the reactions of anyone else who caught it, no one seemed phased by what La Chiefa had said. So clearly, I misunderstood him. But then, what exactly did he say? No matter how many times I replayed the syllables in my head, it just kept coming back to what I swore I heard.

“E-5 and above… eligible… off base housing… additional allowance…”

But that was impossible. No way. Of course, there was an explanation as to why it kept appearing as though he had said something I desperately wanted to hear. I think this is called confirmation bias. Something like that. Yeah okay, I’m definitely an idiot. Oh man, I felt stupid, but there was no way I was going to ask Queen La Chiefa to repeat himself.

“Excuse me Chief, I don’t ordinarily pay any attention to your announcements, so can you read that last one again? Yeah, just the last one. No, I don’t care about the others.”

Nope. Not going to say that. Hell no. After the morning muster, I had every intention to sack out in the nest like the hungover dude in the Engine Room I was. Qualifications could wait, and there was plenty of time later to check the schedule to see if I had PMS and take care of it. But there was one last announcement that was unmistakable and made nesting out impossible.

“ATTENTION ALL HANDS. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. THERE WILL BE A RANDOM DRUG SCREENING FOR THOSE WITH SERVICE NUMBERS ENDING IN… FOUR. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. THERE WILL BE A RANDOM DRUG SCREENING FOR THOSE WITH SERVICE NUMBERS ENDING IN… FOUR.”

“Again? Son of a bitch. That’s twice in a row. They called four last time. Fuck me. I don’t have to piss now. I hate this shit!”

So much for nesting out. I had an inability to pee on demand which was exacerbated by spying eyes. It’s not easy for me to relax with a Chief looking over my shoulder while performing any task, and this was especially true when I had to pull my dick out of my pants for the task. There would be no nesting that day.

A few days later, Jay-Jay mentioned he found an apartment in Aiea (which is a neighborhood fairly close to the base but in the wrong direction from Waikiki). Okay, good for him, but how did he manage to get permission as an E-5? Then I heard these other Second Class mechanics talk about getting a place in Pearl City (another neighborhood somewhat close to base, but even further in the wrong direction).

Precisely what is going on here?

Shortly after that, two Second Class twidgets mentioned to me that they have a three-bedroom place lined up in Moanalua (a neighborhood close to base and ever-so-slightly in the right direction). They just needed one more shipmate roommate to make it work. So, five E-5’s were moving out of the barracks the same week? How am I not part of this? I mean, this isn’t a coincidence; this is a trend. I missed something. The gears in my head started turning.

Wait a second here. Did my hungover ass actually hear Queen La Chiefa’s fragmented syllables correctly a few days prior? Yes. Yes, hungover ass did. Confirmed it with the Engineering Department Master Chief, otherwise known as the “Bull Nuke.” He said that due to a shortage of housing on base, the brass decided that starting in 1998, they were reducing the rank at which sailors stationed at Pearl Harbor Naval Base were eligible to move out of the barracks into town and collect an additional allowance to cover the rent. The rank to claim such a privilege was lowered from E-6 (First Class Petty Officer) down to E-5 (Second Class Petty Officer).

Hey, that’s my rank!

I tracked down those two twidgets and told them I was in. They told me exactly what office inside the squadron headquarters to go to for all the moving-off-base paperwork. On the second floor, halfway down on the right. Okay, got it. Queen La Chiefa graciously granted me permission to head over to the lion’s den to fill out the forms, and I wasted no time scooting over the Commodore’s building. This was so exciting!

I get to move out of the barracks!?! YES!!! Man, I love overcrowded barracks! They’re the best! Now I don’t even have fight off a bunch of drunk assholes in order to meet and marry a tourist! Fuck yeah! Full speed ahead! Nothing can stop me now!

I was immediately stopped by the quarterdeck watch stander at the squadron headquarters despite me charging right into there like I had important intelligence on a new, lethal class of Russian submarine.

“Halt, Petty Officer!”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“Why?”

“You’re out of uniform!”

“Well, these sure as hell ain’t my civies, Seaman. What’s the problem?”

“You can’t be on the first floor in your dungarees.”

“Now that implies that I can be on the second floor in my dungarees.”

“Yes, that’s permitted, Petty Officer.”

“Okay, great. That’s exactly where I need to go right now, so… can I just scoot over to those stairs right there?”

“No, you can’t cross the quarterdeck in your dungarees.”

“So how do I get to those stairs then?”

“By wearing the proper uniform.”

“But you said I can be on the second floor in my dungarees, right?”

“Right.”

“So, are there other stairs I can get to without crossing the quarterdeck?”

“No.”

“Okay, then how is that possible be on the second floor wearing dungarees if I can’t use the stairs?”

“You can use the fire escape.”

“Did you just say… use the—”

“Fire escape, yes.”

“Seriously? The fire escape?”

“Yes, seriously. It’s out back. You can use it to go up to the second floor.”

“Is this a prank? Are you messing with me? Seems like a prank.”

“No, it’s not a prank. Seriously. You’re allowed to use the fire escape in your dungarees. I swear.”

“Hmm… alright, I’ll give it a shot. Beats changing uniforms as long as you’re not setting me up. But if you are, I know where to find you.”

“I’m not setting you up, Petty Officer. Honest.”

He was indeed being honest with me there, and I’m going to be honest with you here: I did not see this one coming at all. What a strange uniform rule!

We’re going by altitude now?

I thought I heard it all before, but this one totally blindsided me. Got me really good. Ah yes. Breaking out the old “just-using-the-fire-escape-in-my-dungarees” loophole, are we? This was even better than the “it’s-only-one-day’s-worth-of-groceries” loophole.

Those pencil neck Navy pricks who come up with all these crazy ass rules must read a shit ton of dystopian novels. They clearly identified with the antagonists. (They’re not the bad guys; they’re just misunderstood!) Then they immediately get to work and try to one up the failed evil (or misunderstood) characters of the book that they just devoured.

Well, if I were to write a dystopian novel, I imagined a juicy plot thread for them. This is specifically to address the first-floor dungaree quarterdeck crossing conflict. I’d have the protagonist wheel in a snack machine with a hand truck right onto the squadron headquarters quarterdeck and place it next to the stairs. Then sailors would walk in to buy a day’s worth of Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Ho Ho’s in their inspection-ready prisoner uniform, and then simply slip through the door into the stairwell to make it to the second floor. Problem solved.

That was a fantasy. In real life, I went out back by the dumpsters, up the fire escape, and into the dimly lit, dingy carpeted, wood paneled office. It was a stark contrast to, and not at all what was promised by, the brightly lit, super shiny, highly waxed white vinyl tiled floors of the quarterdeck. They even had some polished brightwork down there, so I was expecting class and pedigree up here as well. Not so. No wonder dungarees were allowed at this altitude. It all made sense now.

Inside the office, I found nothing but chaos and confusion. I went along for the ride, and let me tell you, it was a fucking roller coaster. I was alternating in equal parts confident that I would get approved to move off base and also certain I was to be denied such privileges. It all depended upon which clerk helped me each time I got stuck somewhere on the paperwork. I’m not sure the human brain is designed to alternate between excitement and heartbreak in such repeated short cycles. That just ends in relentless cynicism and suspicion for the rest of your life.

I felt helpless here. I considered myself a reasonably intelligent individual, but the paperwork simply stumped me. My mind is not wired to think in such ways. Give me a formula and I’ll solve the problem. But bureaucracy was baffling. It created problems I could not solve. Yet the people working in the office didn’t seem to know how to solve the problems they created either. Did they forget their formulas? How are these clerks so damn incompetent? Why are they coming to completely contradictory conclusions with these standard fucking forms?

Turns out they had a legitimate excuse. On New Year’s Day 1998, the military terminated the sixteen year old entitlement program called Basic Allowance for Quarters (BAQ) and replaced it with a brand new entitlement program called Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). Perhaps the only thing the Navy likes better than creating rules is changing rules.

What implementing these rule changes meant for me was that there were a shit ton of Navy clerks who for their entire careers, processed the same paperwork for sailors moving off base until just a few days before I walked in, and now they were struggling to figure out all the changes. Seemed like chaos, especially with the influx of Second Class Petty Officers such as me flooding their office to move off base with these new 1998 rules.

Some of the clerks were hung up with me not having a lease or proof of what I’d be paying for rent. But others were sure I couldn’t lease a place off base until I was actually approved to lease a place off base. I was caught in a Catch-22. And some were certain that Second Class Petty Officers still could not move off base, as was the old rules only days prior. The clerical debate was a nail biter for me. Do I get it or not? Doesn’t anyone know the answer? Does anyone know what they’re even doing? One clerk actually tried to shoo me out the door empty handed, but I lingered around the office in disbelief.

Hey, wait! You gave Jay-Jay and the twidgets their allowance—and I’m senior to all of them!

I refused to leave without an explanation. That’s when a khaki coated all-knowing Chief came to my rescue. Replaying the scene in my head, I was fairly sure his white horse reared up right as he rode in. Then again, none of us waiting in the office were wearing our covers, so clearly the ceiling was below eleven feet. A horse wouldn’t fit. Maybe he was on a little pony or something, I dunno. Or maybe that didn’t actually happen at all. The mind plays tricks while under duress.

What I do know is that the hero Chief called me back up to the counter, took my paperwork and just started filling in all sorts of shit, stamped some pages, grabbed a junior officer to sign some other pages, handed me copies and sent me on my way. He knew what he was doing. I was approved just like that! With signed paperwork in hand, I immediately high tailed it out of the office and down the fire escape before some angry Senior Chief burst in from a back office, ripped up my paperwork and tore me a new asshole in some dialect that sounded like blend of English, whiskey, cigarettes, Old Slavic, and the snarls of wild beasts.

In my post paperwork approval hasty departure, I didn’t even ask the Chief in shining armor how much my housing allowance would actually be. I didn’t care though. I was officially allowed to move off base, and if my allowance didn’t fully cover it, even paying a bit towards the rent would totally be worth it.

Returning to the boat, I told the two twidgets the paperwork was taken care of. I asked them how much we were supposed to be getting. At up to just under a grand a month, it was more than enough. Perfect. My monthly portion of the rent was only $400. Since I was to get the smallest bedroom, I’d pay less than the other twidgets, particularly the one who wanted the master bedroom with the separate bathroom and the balcony. My next question to them was how do I prove to the confused clerks that I pay less than a third of the rent since I get the tiny little runt bedroom. They had no idea what I was talking about.

“I mean, if I show them a copy of the lease, aren’t they just going to divide it by three? Then I’ll end up with more money than I’m paying. And then you guys will get short changed.”

One of the twidgets told me I could keep the entire allowance and pocket the remainder after rent was paid. The other twidget nodded in agreement. I felt uneasy. This was super shady. Fucking twidgets.

What, do they think they’re squats now?

This was too risky. We just got a really good deal, and they already want more. It’s not enough that they’re paying the rent. Now you want to keep the rest of the cash all the way up to the limit? I confessed to Jay-Jay, but he shrugged it off. Turns out he was on the take too. And not just him. Everyone was.

Yeah, everyone collecting BAH was pocketing the difference. Seemed much less risky now. Strength in numbers. But it still didn’t feel right. The government sure was generous with other peoples’ money, that’s for certain. Surprisingly, I was nearly alone in this line of thinking. Most everyone I talked to about this not feeling right had the same justification:

“But Hawaii is so expensive!”

That made no sense. Then even the poor seamen stuck in the barracks should get paid extra. Hawaii as a whole doesn’t suddenly get more expensive when you move off base with your rent paid. Unless there was a conspiracy by shop owners.

As a taxpayer, I’m paying his rent. So, I’m going to charge him double for this pineapple pizza pie.

But there was no conspiracy. The surplus allowance definitely should have been returned to the coffers. And honestly, I didn’t think Hawaii was all that expensive. Even the beer was inexpensive compared to New York City. And my rent was only $400 a month. Try finding the equivalent in NYC. You’ll get a closet shelf to sleep on and a bucket for a bathroom. Really, what was so expensive about Hawaii? The weirdest thing is that everyone had these two go-to commodities. Every single time. It was so bizarre.

“The price of gas is crazy, and have you ever bought a gallon of milk here?”

It was always the cost of milk and gasoline. Every time. Just those two items. That was their entire argument to keep the excess allowance. And okay, yes, milk and gas were in fact more expensive in Hawaii than on the mainland, and possibly more than in New York City even, but seriously, how much fucking milk were they drinking? And where exactly were they going on this little, tiny island?

What, were they all driving around in circles until they ran out of gas each day? Did they have crate full of milk jugs on the passenger seat and had to take a swig every time they saw a coconut or something? They should really see someone for this OCD of theirs. Because milk and gasoline were totally weak excuses to justify pocketing the excess allowance.

But if you think I was about to die on my sword, you are very much mistaken. I got over my uneasiness of being overpaid pretty quickly. Almost instantaneously. Did the milk and gasoline prices get to me? No. It was just with all the fraud, waste and abuse I figured the government is guilty of engaging in, I wasn’t about to draw the line at my feet. Fuck that.

Yeah, okay, I’ll keep that extra six hundred bucks if you want me out of the overcrowded barracks so badly. It’s just going to end up in some lady’s G-string anyway, so it’s not like I’ll actually be keeping the difference.

Now, what did that other legit four hundred bucks of the grand a month total I received get me? One small, empty bedroom and half a parking spot for my motorbike. The bedroom was in this brand spanking new three-bedroom unit of a tall, twenty-story apartment complex. We also had two assigned parking spots in a giant five-story garage. One twidget had a car and the other had a purple scooter. Therefore, scooter boy and I shared a spot.

Since I was late to learn about the off-base housing policy changes, I had no part in choosing the place. (I really had to start paying attention to Queen La Chiefa during those morning musters.) Consequently, there were a few issues with the apartment that the twidgets selected. Perhaps even enough of them that I would have vetoed the place in favor of looking for some place else had I been part of the selection, but they already did the legwork, the apartment was ready to go, and even with all the issues I found, the place far and away better than staying in the barracks for even one minute longer. I raised no objections and moved in right away even with those issues.

The first issue was the location. It wasn’t really all that bad in itself, but there was absolutely nothing around that was walking distance other than a big ass golf course. No pizza places. No delis. No coffee shops. No bars. The base minimart had been my lifeline for food, so now I’d actually have to plan my meals. And being devoid of bars on the block, I’d still have to ride into Waikiki for some action. This meant seriously managing my drinking with the bike. Ricocheting off of bumpers was too expensive to be sustainable. I had a plan for that though.

The next issue involved one of my biggest peeves. It’s a first world problem, so at least I can say my life was going well compared to most people on the planet. But even realizing that, man did it go right through me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a burning hatred for people who stand on escalators—particularly on the left side—and for those who take the elevator just one floor. God, I wished these inconsiderate jerks would just die in a fire. The world does not need such lazy and selfish people. We’d be better off without them.

That’s how I felt, so of course we rented an apartment on the second floor, and wouldn’t you know it, there was no staircase access to go up. Security was so tight that the only to get to the second floor was to swipe your badge or enter the code to use the elevator. The stairs were one way and the stairwell door locked behind you with no badge or code access to get back up. Fucking figures. That’s what I get for harboring such unpleasant thoughts about my fellow human beings, if you can call those monsters humans. Shit, did it again. Well, this was karma in action right here.

For the next year of my life, I’d have to ride that elevator up one floor to get home. I died every time I entered the elevator car with other people in it and pressed the “2” button in front of them. I could feel their eyes burning holes in me. This motherfucker? I know, fucking kill me, right? Yes, I totally agree, I should just die in a fire for riding this elevator only one level. I know, I know, I know.

The third issue was more of a fear. The unit we rented had all this pristine ivory carpet everywhere! Holy hell. I couldn’t believe it when I walked in. Who the fuck decided that ivory was a good idea for carpeting? What do these fuckers eat? What do they drink? What do they do for fun? Fine food is just dripping with sauce and oozing out cheese. Great beverages are jet black or deep red stain producers. Most fun involves either grease or mud in some form. So again, who the fuck chose pristine ivory carpeting!?! This was insane!

My god. It was like I would be living inside a set of working whites. Of course these two twidget roommates saw nothing wrong with this. Of course they didn’t. They wouldn’t know work if it bit them in the ass. They don’t get dirty! But as a mechanic and a biker, I was a dirt and grease magnet. Thankfully the front door opened into the tile-floored kitchen. I would most definitely have to take my shoes off and go right to the sink to soap up my hands, forearms and elbows, and then afterwards take off my clothes in my room as if they were radioactively contaminated. I was deathly afraid I’d be the one who would cause a forfeiture of the deposit when we moved out. I’d then have to pony up and pay out the twidgets’ share.

But what the hell am I bitching about!?! This was so much better than the barracks. My three “issues” with the place were stupid anyway. I never went to bars on or near the base, I could tell the people in the elevator to fuck off, and what, the biggest thing was that I had to take my shoes off in the apartment now? No big deal. For those minor issues, I received much more in return.

Now no one was going to enter our apartment while we were on the boat at work to inspect our rooms. None of us had to make our beds any longer (which was convenient for me as I did not yet have one). We could now use the trash cans and only had to empty them when necessary. I could put my laundry wherever I wanted, like hanging my pants on a doorknob if that’s what my little black heart desired. Speaking of laundry, we had the wonderful convenience of a washer and dryer in the unit. Plus, we also had a full kitchen, and it didn’t even have to be shared with any of the other residents on the second floor no matter how much we pissed them off in the elevator.

But what was the best thing about the new place? That’s right, you guessed it. We could now have a big gun collection and do all sorts of drugs. No, I kid. But seriously, at first I thought the best thing would have been that there was no longer a prohibition on guests staying overnight. That alone was worth the price of admission. (Figuratively speaking as technically I was getting paid more to live off base now.) The excitement for allowing the ladies to stay over was a bit premature however as I had no furniture. Sure, I could invite a girl back to my place, but where would she sleep? I suppose I’d have to make another laundry-pile bed for her right next to mine.

Do you prefer cotton or synthetic fibers? I also have some wool they gave me back in basic if that suits your fancy.

Turns out that I never did get a bed while living at this particular apartment, even after meeting the ladies. They always had one at their place. Part of the reason I didn’t want to get a bed was because this minimalist living, drifter lifestyle totally appealed to me. I could fit everything I owned in a seabag. (Well, other than my motorcycle. And tools. I had a lot of tools.) So okay, anything not motor related could fit in my seabag.

Such thoughts made me happy and content. As soon as I’m out, I’m gone. Just me and my motorcycle and seabag (with the tools fitting in some saddlebags I’d have to buy). Who knows where we’ll end up? Not even me. It would be like that bluesy AC/DC song Ride On. Yeah, one of these days, I’d just pack all of my belongings onto my motorbike, ride on, and have myself a good time. One of these days.

Until then, the other reason for not ever buying a bed was when, maybe six months after moving into the place with those two twidgets, I overheard someone on the mess deck talk about this thing called an “air mattress.” They said you buy for guests to stay over your place comfortably.

Shit. That’s brilliant! Water beds are rad, but what could be more comfortable than sleeping on air!?!

Turns out it didn’t only have to be for your guests. It even works for the person paying the rent to stay there comfortably too. And you know what else? While you can’t fit a whole bed in a seabag, you sure as shit can fit a deflated air mattress in one! So perfect.

But for those first few months of not knowing air mattresses existed, I made do with laundry piles. So then, if it wasn’t the unconditional ladies’ nights at the apartment, what was best about the new place then? I would say the location, but you’d catch me struggling to maintain a straight face. You already know I didn’t care all that much for the location. No pizza, coffee or booze nearby, blah, blah, blah. But let’s continue with this line anyway because there’s always an element of truth to my jokes.

The new apartment was located very close to the base. The commute entailed only three streets in as many miles. Right out of the Makalapa gate, I’d ride straight down Radford Drive for a mile and a half. That snaked around and ended at Salt Lake Blvd, where I’d turn right and go for another mile. Then came the best part. I’d turn left onto my favorite street name of all time and proceed another half a mile.

This last street—or “ala” in Hawaiian—had the totally, totally, totally killer name of Ala Napunani. Oh yeah! Man, I loved saying that. I’d spot that street sign before turning left onto it and immediately repeat the name of the ala for the rest of the ride with slight variations.

Nah-poo-nah-nee.

<seconds pass>

NAH-POO-NAH-NEE!

<seconds pass>

NAAAAAH-poo-nah-nee.

<seconds pass>

nah-POOOOO-nah-nee.

<seconds pass>

nah-poo-NAAAAAH-NEEEEEE!!!

I could say Napunani all day long. Sometimes it was a greeting in a polite imaginary conversation I held with make-believe passengers as I rode.

“Hello. Nah-poo-nah-nee anyone?”

“Yes of course, a very nah-poo-nah-nee day to you too, sir.”

“Would you care for some nah-poo-YAH-nee?”

“Nah, I’m partial to the nah-poo-NAH-nee myself. But mahalo anyway.”

“Yes. Yes of course. Nah-poo-nah-nee it is then.”

“Yes, nah-poo-nah-nee for everyone. It shall be decreed.”

“NAH-POO-NAH-NEE!!!”

I figured no one could actually hear me through my helmet over the engine rumble, but what if they could? Man, I’d feel silly. Anyway, while repeating this over and over like the child I clearly was, one might wonder what was I actually saying in Hawaiian. Well, I’m not really sure. As I said, “ala” means street in Hawaiian, but I didn’t know then and don’t know now what the correct “Napunani” translation is. I couldn’t find it in a Hawaiian dictionary. Is it a name perhaps?

It’s too bad I wasn’t on a street named “Napo’o Nani.”  I believe that can be translated into something like “a glorious sinking.” While not great for most seamen, that would absolutely perfect for us submarine sailors inside our ships designed to sink. Well, perfect if I translated it correctly.

I should mention that since Hawaiian wasn’t a written language until around the 1820’s when the white man needed a way to leave the islanders some bibles to study and thus gave them what seems like an alphabet consisting of all the vowels but like only five or six consonants. The missionaries seemed perfectly content to let the Hawaiians use their new alphabet to make “Mele Kalikimaka” out of what was supposed to be “Merry Christmas,” so I’m not too sure how accurately the missionaries translated the spoken only Hawaiian language onto paper.

For example, that napo’o nani I translated into “a glorious sinking” can also be translated into “a beautiful sunset” and get this, it can even mean “a pretty armpit.” Seriously. Look it up. Could be confusing while directing a Hawaiian wedding photographer on a beach. May need to start pointing at precisely what you want.

What are you doing!?! The sunset! I want the sunset, sunset, sunset! Stop taking pictures of everyone’s armpits, you weirdo!

Okay, forget about napo’o nani. Back to napunani. Perhaps you’ll allow me to break it apart into napu and nani since I can find nothing with them together. If you do, then I lived on “pretty clean street.” (Okay, okay. I’ll come clean myself. Nani means pretty as in beautiful or glorious, not as in rather or fairly. But c’mon, work with me here, and let’s have some fun with the missionary position in Hawaii—err of Hawaiian I mean!) So let’s go with that. Yes, I lived on a pretty clean street: Ala Napunani!

Now while I seriously loved the name of the ala I lived on, let’s be serious about what I found to be hands-down the number one best thing about the new place. Remember how I had to dress up like an astronaut just to ride my motorbike off base for that tiny little portion of the ride on base? And then wherever I went, I had to figure out what to do with all that crap I had to wear? Yeah, remember that? Since I had to have all that gear in order to be let back onto the base, I’d often lug it around in a backpack. If I left the gear with the bike, then I’d be worrying about it being stolen the whole time I was trying to have fun doing something else. Sucked.

Well, living off base now, I didn’t have to deal with that stupid fucking fat pile of shitty pencil neck prick made rules any longer. I only had to suit up when riding into work. If not riding there, then we only had to abide by my rules. I’d blast off from my Napunani place wearing just jeans and a tee shirt, no gloves, and absolutely, positively no dork vest. The helmet was of course optional. This was by far the best thing about moving off base. I could cruise right into Waikiki, park the bike in the Town Center, and walk around unencumbered. This was freedom!

Of course, with such freedom comes responsibility. Whenever I left Napunani at night on the bike, I would invariably end up in a bar. I had to be good though. No more buzzed riding. It wasn’t lost on me that the most direct way to Waikiki from my new place was to go down Puuloa Road and turn left onto Nimitz Highway. This is the exact intersection where I paid out one Treasure-hour’s worth of money to a man for scuffing up his pristine white bumper with my front tire due to drink. Each time I rode through that intersection, I had to think about the choice I’d have to make. There were only two options. I could either drink responsibly or I could sleep on the beach. I slept on the beach. That was always the choice I went with.

Like I could drink responsibly! It had already been proven that this was not possible. The inhibition the booze releases led to bargaining for more and more and more. My choice had to be committing to the beach bed. I could drink as much as I wanted, and honestly, a bed made out of sand was actually more comfortable than a bed made out of a pile of laundry. The funny part is that I had moved into the apartment only a few days before going back out to sea for a couple of weeks. So I didn’t even get to sleep inside my apartment until my return. I suppose my “Napunani nights” should, at least for the first few days, really be classified as “Waikiki awakenings.” Yes, I did have quite a few confusing Waikiki awakenings.

Shit! Where am I!?! Who am I!?! Where am I supposed to be right now!?! Holy fuck! I’m so dead! No maybe not! Maybe I’m not supposed to be anywhere. Maybe I’m supposed to be in sand right now. Relax.

I tell ya, the best thing about sleeping on the beach is that you don’t wake up to that man in your room. Just the statue of the Duke nearby. Much, much better. And then I suddenly had a moment of realization. Upon fully waking up from my slumber by the sea, it dawned on me that I had only yesterday moved out of Paquet Hall and into my new Napunani place.

Holy shit! I no longer live with that man! This is awesome! Wait. Hold on a sec… Now I live with two.

Eleven hundred and twenty-two days to go.