3MI Club: Survival Rates

U.S. 7TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY

11.03.2017

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Eduardo T Otero  

USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN 76)   

“The first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.”
The first rule of 3MI, apparently, is you talk about it…a lot.
As you’ve probably heard or read or seen by now, 3MI is happening. So we’re working on a series of articles where we’ll take a look at Fight Club, the cult novel by Chuck Palahniuk, to give you some tips and tricks for the upcoming inspection. Yep, you read that right – I still don’t know how I got away with it.
Third round is the Safety Manual. So throw some liposuctioned fat in a pan full of clean water – boil and skim, boil and skim. We’re making soap today – 3MI scented.
Round 3: Safety
In chapter 11 of Fight Club, the narrator and Tyler are spending the night in a 1968 Impala – the ones with the front seat bigger than most people’s sofas and cracked vinyl covers that pinch your butt through your jeans. It’s important to note that the characters in this book are not known for their sound judgment or safe practices. Tonight, however, Tyler appears to be a bit more safety-minded than usual. And they’re spending the night here to stay away from Marla Singer.
Here’s why:
For some time, Tyler and the narrator had been using fat to make soap. They used the soap to wash their pants and to sell it to pay rent and fix the leak in the gas line of their house on Paper Street and whatever else they needed money for.
For some time too, Marla had been saving for a collagen lip injection. She wanted “Paris lips.” But her savings weren’t monetary. She said most collagen you get cheap is from cow fat that’s been sterilized and processed, but that kind of cheap collagen is rejected by your body and doesn’t last long. The best kind of fat, she said, was your own – sucked out of the thighs, processed and injected back into the lips. That kind of collagen lasts.
Marla had very little fat of her own so the fat she was saving was her mother’s. Every time her mother would gain a few unwanted pounds, she would get them sucked out and mailed to Marla. It was Marla’s fat trust fund.
Tyler and the narrator didn’t eat red meat, and they couldn’t use chicken fat because the soap wouldn’t harden into a bar.
Marla had been storing her little trust fund in Tyler’s fridge.
You do the math.
Here’s today excerpt from the novel:
“We’re sleeping in a car tonight because Marla came to the house and threatened to call the police and have me arrested for cooking her mother, and then Marla slammed around the house, screaming that I was a ghoul and a cannibal and she went kicking through the piles of Reader’s Digest and National Geographic, and then I left her there. In a nutshell.
“[…] I can’t imagine Marla calling the police, but Tyler thought it would be good to sleep out, tonight. Just in case.
“Just in case Marla burns the house down.
“Just in case Marla goes out and finds a gun.
“Just in case Marla is still in the house.
“Just in case.”
While it is true that no one can be 100 percent safe 100 percent of the time, it is also true that no one can ever be too safe.
In Fight Club, the narrator believes that “on a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero.” I believe that there are better things to walk home to than a crazed woman waving a gun in one hand and a cigarette in the other while standing in an inch of bravo-fire juice covering the entire kitchen floor.
And there must definitely be better ways to kick the bucket, give up the ghost, cash in one’s chips, bite the big one or *insert euphemism of choice here* than doing maintenance on a boat.
According to resident Project Mayhem Maintenance expert, Fire Controlman 1st Class Carlos Aruz, the safety manual is what we use for overall safety, not just for maintenance. It’s the safety standards for use onboard surface ships in the Navy.
Here are the key rules to follow when using the safety manual to perform maintenance and being spot checked.
Rules of 3MI Club (Safety):
#1: Make sure you know how to navigate the safety manual.
When it comes to maintenance, you want to consult Vol II, Section C of the safety manual. When dealing with mad people with violent tendencies – people like Marla after you boil her mom to skim for tallow – check out the trainee guide for Navy security force sentry, which references subject communications skills in accordance with the tactical employment of non-lethal weapons, NTTP 3-07.3.2. This is if you’re a master-at-arms or temporarily assigned to security, though. Otherwise you’re not qualified. Truth is you’re just in for a bad day anyway, really.
#2: Make sure your revision of the safety manual is current
When you grabbed this edition of the Hellcat News, I bet you didn’t notice that the date was not the real one. That’s because no one checks those things. Make sure you actually do for the safety manual. You might learn that you’re using a revision from 1828 (even though they probably didn’t have safety manuals back then). Though odds are your revision is actually current – like the date on this paper. Made you look, though.
#3: Give the inspector a detailed explanation of the specific safety measures that apply to your maintenance
So you know how you’ve done spot checks before, and when asked about safety, you just spit out something about egress and fire extinguishers and points of contact on a ladder well and not licking the alcohol pads because they’re HAZMAT and making sure not to jump overboard while conducting the maintenance? Well that golden age is over (sadly), now these people actually want you to know about real safety and measures that apply to your check specifically and stuff, ugh. So instead of pissing off the inspector, say something about how you should check that hatch brace pins, safety pawls and covers are good to go before passing through a watertight hatch, scuttle or manhole cover. Or maybe something like how you should roll up your sleeves when working with rotating industrial machinery or not wearing metal jewelry when working with potential electrical shock hazards. I don’t know, something.
#4: If tag-outs apply, consult chapter C9
I thought for a bit about something somewhat clever to write here as an explanation for the rule. Then I realized that if this rule is not self-explanatory enough for you, then you probably shouldn’t be doing maintenance around the ship – or anything else involving movement or action or lack thereof, for that matter.
#5: If HAZMAT applies, consult chapter C23
Refer to my explanation for rule #4. Deja Vú.
And there you have it. Simple. To the point. Marla Singer-proof. Now, promise you’ll check out our next edition of 3MI club on the Hellcat News sometime next week, ok? Do you promise? Are you sure you promise? Now remember, that was three times that you promised. I’m Joe’s itching anticipation!

• Date Taken: 11.03.2017
• Date Posted: 12.29.2017 20:15
• Story ID: 260879
• Location: U.S. 7TH FLEET AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY