Soapbox, Rant and Abend

Subject: Soapbox, Rant and Abend
From: Sailor Jim Johnston
Date: 1999/12/23
Newsgroups: alt.callahans

“Twelve hours before my ship sank, I had finally caught up with my
filing.”

Moments ago, Sailor Jim entered the bar, slightly agitated, and now he
is standing atop a small soapbox.

“It was our last winter deployment, changing out winter for summer
buoys, and I had a chance to finally catch up on all the small stuff.
So I got up extra early that day, worked myself into an anal-retentive
frenzy during breakfast, and just tore through the filing. Old files
went into mailing boxes for archiving, replaced by new files, cross-
indexed for ease and maximum efficiency. Personnel records purged and
brought up to date, correspondence files torn apart and put together
fresh, ship’s records made current, and I even updated my PERSMAN with
the latest changes.

“It took me close to ten hours of non-stop work, but I finally
finished. Every single file, every single record, every single piece
of paper .. All in absolute perfect relation to each other and the
universe!

“Then, at around 2 am the next morning, the ship sank. She spent the
entire winter frozen into Lake Superior and wasn’t raised until the
next spring. No records survived and every piece of paper in the files
turned to soggy pulp.” Sailor Jim pauses, then heads off in a
tangent. “Everybody here, no doubt, has been told at one time in his
or her life to ‘always wear clean underwear .. In case you’re ever in
an accident,’ right?

“Ever met anyone who’d actually been in an accident? A bad enough one
that they had to be taken to the hospital and stripped down to that
underwear?

“Does anyone here actually believe that their underwear was still
clean? Well, I”ve had a few pair cut off of me in my life and, believe
me; none of them were clean. (As Dr. Cosby is wont to say; first you
say it, then you do it.)

“Putting on clean underwear in case you’re in an accident is akin to my
catching up the filing just before my ship sank! If I’d knows how the
day was going to end, I could have caught up with my rack-time,
instead. I could have had a nice lunch, played a few rounds of euchre,
read a nice book .. All in all, I could have really enjoyed my day and
been in a pleasantly relaxed mood when the ship morphed into submarine
mode, instead of unwinding from an anal-high.

“If you’re going to be in an accident, then what’s it matter how dirty
your underwear is prior to it? Heck, I think it would be far more
sensible to put on your worse pair of shorts, the ones you’re planning
to convert to car waxing duty at the end of the year. Even if they’re
dirty.

“The saying should actual be “Always wear *dirty* underwear, in case
you’re in an accident.” Sailor Jim pauses again. “Now Jan 1, 2000
looms before us and nobody can quite agree just what will happen at
0000:01. Some believe that it will be a matter of ‘Thank you for
playing our game and what do we have for our departing contestants,
Johnny?!’ Others see to think it will be more along the line of ‘What
do you mean you forgot to see if all the nukes are Y2K compliant?!?’
Still others are leaning towards ‘That’s right, Mr. President, nuclear
mines in all the major cities will go off one second past midnight …
unless you pay me ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS!’ My personal favorite,
of course, is ‘Happy New Year, Everyb… Oh, Damn those fuses .. Will
somebody fetch me a flashlight?’

“There exists, by all accounts, an actual chance that, come the New
Year, things will – to some degree or another – get fubar’d. Perhaps a
major fubar, mayhap a minor fubar, perchance just an itty-bitty
fubar … more like a fubar-ette … but fubar, none the less.

“Okay. Right.

“SO WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING AT WORK TODAY!? Didn’t I learn the lesson
when the ship went down? Did I have all those pairs of boxers sliced
off of me by a scrub nurse for nothing? When did my optimism grow
back?!? (Damn it, I had it surgically removed back in ’83 .. I’m gonna
sue that doctor!) I am sitting here, in a near empty university,
getting a binding run ready to go for when we come back off of
Christmas vacation on the 3rd of January, when there exists the chance
that it’s all for nothing. I could be at home, in bed with my wife! I
could be playing with my cat! I could be feeding some ducks! I could
be … hell; I could be doing any number of enjoyable and relaxing
activities.

“Okay. Right.” Sailor Jim hops off of his soapbox and, stopping only
to finish his drink, heads for the door. “Ladies, Gentlemen, patrons,
and wenches … I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I dearly hope to be back on the first to celebrate the odometer turning
over with you all, but will be on vacation with my darling Dian until
then and in a state of abend.

“God bless you all, shipmates. Keep your powder dry, your wits about
you, and survive the experience.”

Sailor Jim Johnston

(He pauses before walking out the bar for the final time
in ’99. “Oh … just for the record? I fully intend to be wearing
clean underwear right up to the end. It’s still a class thing to do
and more healthy.”)

–
“The More I See of People,
The More I Love My Dog.”
(Present company mostly excluded, of course.)