.the uninvited guest.

How to prepare for deployment

Military or Contractor.. here are some tips to prepare you for life in the middle east as a combat or security operator.

1. Sleep on a cot in the garage.

2. Replace the garage door with a curtain.

3. Six hours after you go to sleep, have your wife or girlfriend whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble, "sorry, wrong bunk"

4. Renovate your bathroom. Hang a translucent plastic sheet down the middle of your bathtub and move the shower head to chest level. keep four inches of soapy cold water on the floor, stop cleaning the toilet. Leave two to three sheets of toilet paper on a used roll or for best effect, remove the toilet paper altogether. For a more realistic deployed bathroom experience, stop using your bathroom and use a neighbor's. Choose a neighbor who lives at least a quarter mile away.

5. When you take showers, wear flip flops and keep the lights off.

6. Every time there is a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and dump dirt on your head.

7. Put lubricating oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it on "high" for that tactical generator smell.

8. Don't watch TV except for 1970s era movies shown in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch and then show a different one.

9. Leave a lawnmower running in your living room 24 hours a day for proper noise level.

10. Once a week, blow compressed air up through your chimney making sure the wind carries the soot across and on to your neighbors house. laugh at him when he curses you.

11. Have the paperboy give you a haircut

12. Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.

13. Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a saltine cracker.

14. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator. then serve some kind of meat in a unidentifiable white sauce poured over partially cooked noodles. do this for every meal.

15. Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. when it goes off, jump out of bed and go to the shower as fast as you can. Simulate there is no hot water by running out into your yard and breaking out the garden house.

numbers 16-40 are coming soon...