But the needle guns are the worse. I think @Just Joe and @Nords would appreciate these thoughts ;-).
Yeah, thanks for the
flashbacks memories.
My low point was a night as inport Ship's Duty Officer on one submarine where the shipyard was working 24/7 shifts to add gear to our Sonar Shack (literally a two feet above my top rack) and grinding down a metal fitting to fit flush with the Sonar deck. The grinding wheel was loud but I was tired, and I actually slept through the noise for an hour. I woke up when the grinder stopped.
These "simulate sea duty at home" lists have been floating around for years, and in the 1980s they were passed around by hand.
Now that we have the Web, we can share them as memes.
For those laying awake at night wondering about the ORSE initialism: it stands for Operational Reactor Safeguards Exam, the evolution where a team comes aboard your nuclear-powered submarine or aircraft carrier for 2-3 days to inspect all of your reactor records and watch you conduct engineering training. I've done at least a dozen of them during my career (usually with grades of Above Average or Average) and I've even done one at a submarine nuclear training command.
In the submarine force we did them annually (or more frequently). The training (and cleaning) to prepare for the inspection is far worse than the actual evolution. I actually preferred the "Surprise ORSE" where you were given 48 hours' advance notice and had no time for more than wiping up the worst of the dirt and running a couple of drill sets.
Oh fuck no. Not at home. I get got enough of that on the ship my boats.
Sam summarizes this more eloquently than I ever could.
I occasionally miss some parts of sea duty: being the Surfaced Officer Of the Deck who got to help open the upper bridge hatch after surfacing at 3 AM, and that first glimpse of an awesomely bright Milky Way with no other light pollution. Then running surfaced (still 50 miles from land) sipping a hot cup of coffee on the bridge and enjoying our phosphorescent wake astern while the lights of Oahu gradually appeared over the horizon. I even used to get submarine pay & sea pay for the privilege of that experience.
But there's good news! It turns out that I can enjoy that view on a cruise ship, too. I have to give them money for this setup, but it's worth not enduring all of the sucky parts I used to live through for my sea-duty memories. These days my life energy is worth far more than ~$800/month.
Submarine shipboard water usage in the 1980s/90s used to be considered sustainable at 22 gallons per person per day. That includes all galley water use (keeping the cooks, the food, and the gear clean enough to minimize diseases) and laundry (optional) along with drinking.
Submarines used to make their fresh water (from sea water) by vapor compression or by distillation. (Today they're shifting to reverse osmosis, which is much more reliable.) When the electric still or the steam-fed evaporator broke a piece of its gear (which happened at least monthly) then the showers and laundry were secured. It usually took at least a day to repair but could take 2-3 days of 24/7 attention.
During the outage, even taking a birdbath at a sink was frowned on. Experienced crew used to keep a pack of baby wipes for extreme outages of 4-5 days. (It was usually hidden in our bunks next to our personal backup roll of toilet paper, but that's a different deprivation emergency.) The baby wipes were "unscented" (so that shipmates didn't have to put up with perfume stench) but everyone could still tell that you were temporarily no longer sweaty & crusty.
(In case you're now laying awake at night with a new question, submarines use sea water to flush the toilets. But I digress again.)
When we went to sea for periods of less than 10 days, we wouldn't even open the laundry. The crew was expected to bring enough underwear and do their next load of laundry at home.
Submarines maintain their atmosphere with a chemical that can smell like dead fish (monoethanolamine) and we're frequently exposed to diesel fuel (from running the diesel generator for drills or maintenance) along with various exotic marine hydraulic oils. When I came home from my boats, my spouse had me undress in the garage and put that laundry straight into the washing machine or a soaking bucket.
Today I feel zero guilt about wallowing in hotel showers like a water buffalo. I only shut off the water if it gets in the way of shampooing or soaping.
To address the OP: Yeah I'm an environmental whacko so limit my water usage when I can. I even hand wash dishes and put buckets in all my sinks to catch and reuse my grey water
Oh hold my beer.
These days I surf at least 2-3 times per week, so I soak in salt water for 90-120 minutes and then rinse off at the beach shower. In between surf sessions, if I get exceptionally grimy with yardwork then I'll hose off in the side yard with a washcloth and finish indoors with a birdbath. Our utility sink in our garage gets more use than our bathroom shower.
My spouse and I are empty nesters, so there's not a lot of dishwashing or laundry at our house... maybe once a week for the former and twice a month for the latter. (Extra dishes and extra clothing are cheap.) It's Hawaii so our main wardrobe is surf shorts & tank tops. We use EnergyStar appliances, cold water, and mostly a drying rack. It's been decades since my last drycleaning bill.
Most homes in Hawaii use solar water heaters, and ours produces more hot water than we can use. (I've shut off its electric backup heaters because... Hawaii.) We only irrigate our yard & fruit trees during the hot months (April-October) and we get enough rain in the winter to stop using our sprinklers. Our water bill is usually $50/month during winter and $100/month during summer. Our sewage bill is over $100/month all year long (and rising rapidly as Oahu's sewage infrastructure wears out), so water consumption is a minor expense.
With rooftop photovoltaic panels, we make more energy than we can use. Our electric bill is $28/month for grid connection fees, but we've been net producers since 2007.
We no longer wash our cars (used Nissan Leafs), unless a neighborhood kid offers to do it for money. (That's a teachable moment about financial independence.) If it's raining we move them into the driveway for a rinse and then we wipe them off. But I'd prefer to pay a kid to do that too.
(Electric vehicles are great for two retirees on a 30x40-mile island, too. We recharge them from our PV array and save another $800-$1000 per year on gasoline.)
Over the years we've talked about installing rain barrels, but we haven't had the need to do so. Most of our gutter downspouts & rain chains irrigate the yard anyway.
Someday I'm going to install a roof-mounted solar-powered vapor compression still. Depending on the ambient humidity they supply about 20-40 gallons of drinking water per day. I'm keeping an eye on the tech, and there are Oahu retailers selling them, but the noise of the compressor & fans has been a consumer concern. If we go through a sustained drought then we'd buy one and live with the noise.
We've been through a 1980s multi-year drought (at a California duty station) where you did not run your irrigation sprinklers or wash your car. At the worst part of the drought you only flushed your toilet a couple times per day.
Back then the utility water became expensive enough for people to install gray-water irrigation systems. They used a holding tank from the sink with a settling/filtration system to pump a trickle flow through hoses under the yard's ground cover (to minimize bacterial exposure from spraying it).
