The Class Poet Does It Again

“...WITH A PINCH OF SALT”

Now every true profession has a language all its own,
You’d never hear a plumber call a toilet bowl a “throne,”
So we as plebes made haste to learn the complex rules and rates,
To speak the Navy’s lingo like the saltiest of mates.

While rank civilians “mopped the floor”, we’d “swab the bloomin’ deck,”
‘Twas “ladder”, not a “stairway”, or we’d catch it in the neck,
We never leaned against a “wall”, our bathroom was “the head”,
We stripped and squared away our bunks, but never made a bed.

But years ago, so ‘scuttlebutt’ reported, I believe,
One plebe was not relaxing while at home on Christmas Eve–
His mother proudly called the neighbors in to meet her “freshman” son,
He pulled a Form Deuce from his shirt and “fried” her, five-and-one!

RR 5-10-08