12th Day of Christmas looks like 4th Day of Christmas, underway sailor reports
By Blondes Over Baghdad
NORFOLK, Va. — Petty Officer 1st Class Ted Gladfelter, a gunner’s mate onboard the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), reports that the 12th Day of Christmas pretty much looks like the 4th day of Christmas while underway.
“On the 4th Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… a handjob in the fan room,” Gladfelter sang to himself while waking up in the same rack, about to eat the same breakfast chow, on another day of the merry holiday season.
“On the 6th Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… a handjob in the fan room.”
Chief Petty Officer Dan Krenshaw, Gladfelter’s immediate supervisor, let Gladfelter know that if the fan room behavior continues, he’ll meet up with “five golden ring-knockers,” what Krenshaw describes as “festive slang for the officers at his captain’s mast.”
Seaman Bryce Holloway approached the holiday more philosophically.
“They say every day is Monday on the ship,” she mused during an 8-hour watch shift. “And Christmas looks just like a Monday. Does that mean that every day is Christmas?”
“No,” Holloway concluded. “It must not be, because Christmas only comes once a year. And they don’t serve Turkey every Monday.”
Ensign (j.g.) Nate Davison described life at sea as “an endless wall of gray and green, with one hour bleeding into the next.”
“You only know what time it is by the endless ringing of the bells,” he added, in between violent rounds of sea sickness-induced vomiting. “But I kind of thought it must be a holiday because my mom sent me cookies.”
Sources onboard the Ford confirmed that the only person who really noticed how close they were to Christmas was the chaplain because he could “go balls deep into that Jesus stuff.”
“And he says it’s actually still Advent,” one source added.
Intelligence sailors on shore duty confirmed that inside the SCIF, they also had no idea if it was any day of Christmas, Easter, or just someone’s PCS date.
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North Pole warns of pilot shortage as reindeer leave for commercial sleighlines
By Cat Astronaut on Dec. 12, 2018
SANTA’S WORKSHOP — The North Pole is in the midst of a readiness crisis as it struggles to fill its pilot ranks with qualified reindeer, who are leaving the service in record numbers to work at commercial sleighlines, sources confirmed today.
Santa Claus claims he has only 75 percent of the deerpower he needs to deliver presents this year, especially in crucial heavy lift squadrons.
“This is truly alarming. There is no way I’ll be able to deliver presents to all the good girls and boys, let alone coal to all the naughty ones,” said Claus. “The reindeer we do have are being worked to the antler, flying three or four gumdrop sorties a day.”
Santa is offering hefty incentive bonuses to keep reindeer from leaving for more lucrative jobs at commercial sleighlines like Hoofthansa. But even offers of triple helpings of moss and herbs are not enough to keep them in the service. Unless he can fix the retention problem soon, Santa says he might have to cancel Christmas across large swaths of North and South America.
“We’re trying to do more with less, but the fact is that’s impossible,” said Lt. Col. Rudolph, commander of Red Squadron. “With this Op Tempo, my guys already refuse to fly over Detroit and Chicago. It’s just too dangerous.”
The average reindeer costs about $1 million and takes 3 years to train, according to North Pole figures. The North Pole needs to keep those ruminants in its ranks past their initial commitment to maximize return on its investment.
“Not only are large numbers of reindeer getting out, our best reindeer are getting out,” said Rudolph. “Donner and Blitzen dropped papers last week, and Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen all took private jobs at Doeing testing unmanned sleighs.”
While Claus increasingly has been filling the ranks with unmanned aerial sleighs (UASs), turnover among the elves who pilot them has also been an issue.
“These UAS pilots are always on the clock, delivering presents to hundreds of houses an hour from thousands of miles away,” he said. “Nobody can handle that much Christmas cheer. Nobody.”
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