A look inside my sons mind...The Bilge Rat

[Stephanie]

So I thought I would share this with you all.. My son likes to write. He is like his mother and feels better when he vents by writing. However he is more of a creative writer. He wrote something that made me sob on his Myspace Blog at 4am the morning he was on his way to bootcamp. You can read that on my main page here if you wish. It was nice AND terrifying to see what he was Actually thinking and how scared he actually was even though he didnt voice it to me.

Anywhoo.. he wrote this a short time ago and posted it so I thought I would share it wih you all. Nick is a Machinest Mate aka Maintence on the USS Harry S Truman. This is his first assignment and has been there since August after he finished A School.

Enjoy!

It's 6 A.M. time to get up for work, I don't feel that great can I call in sick today? No, since work is less then a 2 min walk from were I sleep, and my boss knows right were I live. Get dressed, and walk up 3 flights of stairs to make sure im present and accounted for, what theres nuke testing today? Well I guess that doesn't apply to me, wait, everyone is supposed to have the day off today except nukes, sweet. Nope wrong, I get to stay at work and clean the Bilge. Ding Ding happy hour time! Lets clean the Bilge, make sure I grab my bucket and sponge, since I need it, since the Navy says I need it. Down to the lower level I go, the Bilge pockets to my side are my home during working hours, and they have been lonely without me for the last 14 hours. I smile as I dangle my feet in the hole, the smell is heavenly. Splash! I've dropped in and splashed Bilge water everywhere, Pulling my cleaning utilities inside with me under the catwalks above, I feel safe. Its time to clean, but what I cleaned yesterday is just as dirty today, so whats the point. . . Yawn, there doesnt seem to be one so I'll just find a comfortable oil soaked pipe and sleep for the next hour or so, should I be scared that my boss will find me sleeping on the job? Nope, he is a nuke, and so is most of the other workers in the plant, and nukes dont want to soil their good uniforms. So my fear subsides as I drift to sleep. Ding ding ding, its time for training, where the nukes review their jobs and study for upcoming tests, and i space out for another hour. Traning ends and its time to get back to "work," my boss tells me to find a leak in the Bilge, there isn't one they just don;t have any jobs for me and want to keep me busy. I splash back into the bilge and pull out some cookies I swiped from the Mess Deck when I returned from training, Mmm Oreos, another hour or so goes by, and its time for training again. As training ends its time for my body to be tallied and listen to the nukes be praised for their jobs. I'm told I cant leave today since a nuke borrowed a confidential book and all of reactor must stay until its found. I'ts now 3 hours past the end of the work day as I squat here in the dirty, smelly, muck called the Bilge. This is my work, I eat, sleep, and play in the Bilge, I'm a Bilge Rat.