Monday-Punday #28

SirLoin, an amateur maritime historian, offers the following tidbit concerning the offshore sailing log of the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship in the world.

“On 23 August 1779, the USS Constitution set sail from Boston, loaded with 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of water, sufficient food, 74,000 cannon shot, 11,500 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of run. Her mission: to destroy and harass English shipping.”

“On 6 October, she made Jamaica and took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. Three weeks later, she made the Azores, where she provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 6,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.”

“On 18 November, she set sail for England, where her crew captured and scuttled 12 English merchant vessels and took aboard their rum. By this time, the Constitution had run out of shot. Nevertheless, she mad her way unarmed up the Firth of Clyde for a night raid. Here, her landing party captured a whiskey distillery, transferring 40,000 gallons aboard and headed for home.”

“On 20, February 1780, the Constitution arrived in Boston with no cannon shot, no powder, no food, no rum, no wine and no whiskey. She did, however, still carry her crew of 475 officers and men, and 48,600 gallons of (stagnant?) water.”

The math is … enlightening:

Length of cruise: 181 days.

Booze consumption: 2.26 gallons per man per day

[not counting the unknown quantity of rum captured from the 12

English merchant vessels in November.]

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These three guys are out fishing, and when they get back to their truck, they see it’s surrounded by three bears:

“OK guys, I figure the only way to get to the truck is to really piss these bears off. Then they’ll leave and we can go home. So, Ed, you take the one on the left, the little cub with the broken leg, and I’ll take the one in the middle, the little cub with one eye and a hurt paw, and Joe, you take the one on the right, the huge silvertip mama grizzly bear with blood-encrusted claws, the big teeth, and froth around the mouth”

“Hey, man wait a sec, I’m supposed to get this monster pissed off, and you guys get the cubs ? That’s not fair!”

“Now, now, Joe. We all have our bears to cross.”

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A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that the teller’s name is Patricia Whack. So he says, “Ms. Whack, I’d like to get a loan to buy a boat and go on a long vacation.”

Patti looks at the frog in disbelief and asks how much he wants to borrow. The frog says $30,000. The teller asks his name and the frog says that his name is Kermit Jagger and that it’s OK, he knows the bank manager.

Patti explains that $30,000 is a substantial amount of money and that he will need to secure some collateral against the loan. She asks if he has anything he can use as collateral.

The frog says, “Sure. I have this,” and produces a tiny pink porcelain elephant, about half an inch tall. Bright pink and perfectly formed. Very confused, Patti explains that she’ll have to consult with the manager and disappears into a back office.

She finds the manager and says, “There’s a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000. And he wants to use this as collateral.” She holds up the tiny pink elephant. “I mean, what the heck is this?”

So the bank manager looks back at her and says:

“It’s a knick knack, Patti Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone.”

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See ya next week