10. Cut a twin mattress in half lengthwise and enclose three sides. Add a roof which prevents you from sitting upright (18 inches is a good height). Place it on a platform which is at least six feet off the deck (floor). Place a dead animal under your bed to simulate the aggregate smell of your five cubicle mates and/or their sheets.
11. Set your alarm clock to go off at the "snooze" interval for the first hour you're sleeping. This will simulate the various alarms of watchstanders and night crew going off at odd times and waking you up. Place your rack (bed) on a rocking table to ensure you're tossed from side to side for your remaining 3 hours of sleep. Have a custom alarm clock which sounds like a fire alarm, a police whistle, and a new wave rock band combined to simulate the various drill alarms onboard a ship so that you will never get accustomed to ignoring your regular alarm clock.
12. Prepare all your food while blindfolded. To simulate Navy cooks, use lard in everything and either no spices whatsoever or all the spices you can grope. If any part of the meal will not stick to an inverted plate when cold, you didn't use enough lard. If the food contains more than one part per thousand fiber, throw it away and start over. Randomly place some food back in the freezer or under the broiler, to ensure burning and/or frozen parts still remain. Remove your blindfold and eat as fast as humanly possible. Remember to make and serve more food than you can possible eat to keep up with the Navy's waste standards.
13. To simulate general quarters drills, have someone randomly shut off power at the main breaker every few days. Run around screaming "Fire in the main engine room!" until you are sweating profusely and/or lose your voice. Then call out, "Secure from drill" and restore power.
14. Buy a gas mask. Smear the seal with rancid animal fat and scrub the facepiece with steel wool until you cannot see out of it. During every third general quarters simulation, wear the mask for the entire simulation. Alternately, wear the mask for 2 or 3 hours once a week, even to the bathroom.
15. Prepare yourself for an emergency which will require you to evacuate the premises, knowing that if you do exit the house, the biker gang you hired to simulate sharks in the water will cut off your arms and legs. Study first aid for bleeding until you can quote the book verbatim.
16. Remove all plants, pictures, and decorations from the entire house. Paint all furnishings and bulkheads (walls) grey, white, or hospital O.R. green.
17. To simulate the preventive maintenance program, study the owner's manuals for all appliances in the dwelling. At regular intervals take each one apart and put it back together again. Then test operate it at the extremes of its tolerances for one hour. If the appliance breaks down, tear it apart again and then write a letter to the manufacturer and have them deliver the necessary parts by the most expensive and rapid means available to a pack mule service at the Grand Canyon which will then deliver the parts to you (simulating the Supply Department).
18. Ensure you are living in a clean and happy environment by cleaning every room from top to bottom. Ensure you take all day to do it, even if it is only a 3 hour job. Whenever you can, go back over spots you already did. When complete, inspect your work, criticizing as much as possible. Never be satisfied with anything you do.
19. Once a day, plug in your TV and watch a random 27 minute segment of a movie you walked out of last year, then watch an episode of "Star Trek" you didn't like the first 7 times you saw it.
20. Since you have no doctor, stock up on Band-Aids, Motrin and Sudafed, which the Navy Corpsman Training Manual swears will cure every disease and ailment known to man.
21. To simulate liberty in a foreign port, once every 3 weeks go outside directly to the city slums wearing your best clothes. Enter the raunchiest bar you can find and ask the bartender for the most expensive imported beer he has. Drink as many of these as you can in four hours, then hire a cab to take you back by the longest route he can find. Tip the driver after he charges you double because you were dressed funny. Lock yourself back in your dwelling for another 3 weeks.
This simulation must run for a minimum of six months to be effective. The exact date of the end must be changed no fewer than seven times without your knowledge. This is done to keep you guessing about when you can expect to get back to a semi-normal life. It is also done in the hopes of screwing up any plans you may have made or would like to make.
