This Month's Story

There was a stand-up comedian on television years ago who called himself Father Guido Sarducci. He always appeared in the robes of a Catholic priest and, looking very serious, deliver ridicules sermons. His hypothesis in one skit was what he called “Vita est Lavorum” (Life is Work). The gist of which was that you received a salary of $14.50 for each day you lived. Finally at the end of your life you met with God and he paid you. But after he pays you, he begins subtracting from that amount, the sum cost of all your sins (for example, four dollars for say stealing a bag of potato chips when you were nine or ten dollars for each time you lied). If you didn’t have enough money when he was through with your sin summation, he sent you back to earth to try again.

But that’s not the purpose of this story. The point I’m trying to emphasize here is that nowhere in the skit does Father Guido tell how much does ‘a prank’ cost. I’m talking about a serious prank, none of the sophomoric short-changing someone’s bed sheets. No, what I mean is a serious prank that in the final count-up of your life’s sins would overbalance everything you’ve done; a prank in which the look that God gives you at your final meeting is not a good one.

The fact is that I am guilty of such a prank. A prank that is so bad that I cringe at the thought of ever dying. I’m really scared of that judgmental look that God will give me when he does his judgmental tally. I fact I am so afraid that I have decided not to die.

It all happened many years ago when I was part of the scientific crew on a research ship working off the Atlantic Coast. Besides the ship’s crew, there were thirteen scientists: twelve men and one woman. Nowadays, having a woman as one of the scientists is not rare, but in those days it was an almost never happen event. With this one woman, the Naval Oceanographic Office was exploring the danger of having a woman aboard a ship at sea for two weeks alone with a crew of sex crazed men. It was a radical idea but who knows, the thinking went, it just might work out.

So on this particular cruise, we had Judy.

Now I want to say here before I go any further that Judy was not particularly attractive. In fact, to put it lightly, she was very unattractive. After all, the big thinkers in the Washington Naval Offices were not completely stupid. But there was a twist to all this that no one had anticipated, Judy, was a wonderful person.

For example, when she was through with her watch, everything was not just neat and orderly, it was spotless. When you came on watch to relieve her, she would stay up a little longer to help you get going. This was especially true in the lonely midnight watch. Her talking to you and helping you along made all the difference between a terrible break in a good night’s sleep and just a pleasant interruption.

She was a wonderful conversationalist; meaning she listened to all your jokes good or bad and she always smiled when someone said the long since dead, “Judy, Judy, Judy.” Looking at her face on those occasions was to look at a saint; she’d smile as if the she had never heard anyone say that to her before.

You get the idea. By the end of her time aboard ship everyone loved her.

Now comes the bad part.

My prank.

In addition to it’s scientific crew, the ship on this cruise had two navy enlisted men. They consisted of a First Class petty officer and a Second Class petty officer. This was soft duty for them. They had no idea what we were doing and didn’t care. They were meteorologists and their job was to release a helium balloon every six hours, report the readings back to their home office and sleep and this they did.

And oh yes, they too were in love with Judy.

One day, about three days before dropping Judy, of at Camden, New Jersey, I was walking by her stateroom (the ship was an old World War 11 minesweeper and we slept two to a room. Judy, being the only female had a room all to herself). As I went by her door, I remembered I had not seen her that day. I asked someone passing where she was and was told that she had had the mid-watch and was probably in her room sleeping.

I kept on going to the fantail where the navy met crew were about to release the noon balloon. Once the balloon was released the data taking was electronically processed and sent back to their home office in Washington. Once the balloon was released, the two man crew began to store things away till the next balloon release six hours later.

I stood and watched them. I couldn’t help myself; as I watched, I began to get an idea.

I walked over to them and casually approached them with my idea.

Yeah, they said, they had extra long hose and yes, they could spare a balloon.

Several other people nearby heard what I was suggesting. Looking around I found myself amid a sea of impish grins. Several ran off to tell others and soon I found myself leading a small army down the mid ship corridor with a long hose and a balloon. At Judy’s door, we opened it a crack and listened. Nothing but heavy breathing; Judy, was asleep. The room itself was pitch-black.

I sat down and took my off shoes. When I stood up again, one of the met crew handed me a limp balloon with a hose attached. I slipped into the room with the door slightly ajar so I could see. As I got closer, I could see Judy, in her pajamas sleeping on her back. I carefully laid the balloon on her chest and picking up the excess hose, backtracked out of the room.

By now the passageway was full of people. As soon as I was clear, one of the met team signaled to the other on the fantail and we listened to the gas hissing through the line, ready to pull it all free if something went wrong.

It didn’t. More and more gas went into the room and we stood in dead silence looking at one another, but our minds on the poor girl sleeping in the dark room.

Then, BOOOOM!!!

With this Judy, screamed!

The met crewman pulled the hose out the door, shut it and we stampeded out the passageway.

The met team quickly put their gear away; everyone assumed an air of busy working just as Judy, came shooting out the after hatch in her dark green pajamas, screaming at the top of her lungs. Everyone was around her soothing her, asking what was wrong. She was screaming and crying, saying, almost incoherently, that there was something in her room. We all went back in to see; calming her as we went.

With all the lights on in the room, the room looked clear. However, one of the met crew nudged me and pointed to the wall near Judy’s bed. The inside of the balloon had been powdered with talcum powder to keep it from sticking when it was packed. A great deal of that powder was smeared on the walls beside the bed.

By now, the crowd in the hall had calmed Judy down and ushered her to the mess hall to give her coffee and ice cream; where they all listened in wide-eyed wonder as she told them about the creature holding her down on her bed, covering her face and arms so that she couldn’t move. Then with a loud noise, it had exploded, leaving her in the dark room terrified. Switching on the bed lamp, she saw no one and ran out of the room screaming for help.

The whole ship’s crew was in the room for the noon meal mystified and then quietly enlightened by one of the conspirators. The men made her repeat her story again and again asking for every tiny detail. Some left to go back to her room to see for themselves where the event had occurred. All they found was the met crew and I wiping the walls with rags so that no trace of powder remained. Someone had even brought in a vacuum cleaner.

Several days passed with Judy sleeping with her room lights on but otherwise appearing amazingly calm. Nobody said anything about what happened. Finally we pulled into Camden, New Jersey. Judy was to be the Maid of Honor at a friend’s wedding and the ship had to pick up some equipment, so it was a stop that pleased everyone.

Late that afternoon as we were getting ready to leave, a small pickup marked, “Smith Fine Liquors,” pulled up to the dock with a package for the ship labeled “To the Scientific and Meteorological Crew.”

The package was brought to the mess hall and we all sat around and opened it.

It was a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and a card that read, “To a great bunch of guys! Love, Judy.” One of the met team silently handed me the card. It was very quiet in the room as the bottle sat in the very center of the table. I looked around and saw that several of the men were looking at me with dirty expressions on their faces.

Let me take a second here to say something. First of all Judy was not stupid. Each day she had to compete with men who weren’t used to having women working as an equal in “their” profession. Secondly, several times after the balloon incident, I saw Judy sitting on the fantail talking with the Met crew about their work and the mechanism’s they used to fill the balloons.

I believe that if Father Guido is right, God is just itching for me to come and collect my wages. And I also believe that Judy, when her turn comes, will innocently show him the copy of the card she sent to us aboard the ship and he will just give her his most pleasant smile and let her go straight into heaven.