tulsa wrote:
People with forethought don't grab a beer, they tap a home brew.
Old Navy,
Did you ever get sent for a bucket of prop wash?
Lewis
And you've got the old one about finding a can of relative bearing grease. Actually saw one kid aboard one of the boats I was on get the better of the Chief of the Boat on this one. This particular COB was a real flamer that no one on the crew much cared for (hated his f#####g guts was more like it). One day this kid was working on his submarine qualifications, and asked the COB if he could get a checkout on a particular system. This COB hated giving checkouts (you had to be an E-7 or above before this guy would even give you the time of day), and figured he'd blow the kid off by telling him if he went back to the engine room and found a can of relative bearing grease, he'd give him a checkout.
So the kid leaves the mess decks headed back to the engine room, the COB sitting there laughing, making some not-so-pleasant comments about how he'd gotten rid of that little so-and-so that was trying to pester him, along with a couple remarks concerning the kid's level of intelligence. The rest of us on the mess decks were just wishing this jerk would shut up and go away.
Ten minutes later, the kid returns carrying a metal can of grease, and presented it to the COB. COB looks at the can, his eyes bug out and his jaw drops so low it nearly hits the table, then his face turned beet red, he uttered a few choice obscenities, and stormed off the mess decks, leaving the poor kid standing there with a puzzled look on his face.
More than a little curious as to what had happened, a few of us went over to ask the kid what he'd done. One look at the can of grease, and we were literally rolling on the deck in laughter.
Besides all the usual Mil-Spec info, Navy stock number, and military nomenclature that was printed on the can, down at the bottom of the label were the following words -
"MANUFACTURED BY THE RELATIVE BEARING CO."
This kid had found an honest-to-god can of relative bearing grease!
Later on, doing a little investigating, we found out that the gent who owned said company was former Navy himself, and as a tongue-in-cheek payback he had named it the Relative Bearing Company so that he could honestly say that he supplied the Navy with - you guessed it - relative bearing grease.
After word got around of how this kid had bested the COB at his own game, he had little problem completing his submarine qualifications in record time.
Oh, and BTW - it wasn't entirely by chance that young man found a can of grease made by that company, considering that I was Repair Parts PO for Machinery Division, if you catch my drift.
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Nope, I worked with things that went boom in later years. I was just on a sinking boat is all at the time that had caught some bad weather.