Life at Sea: Probably The Laziest Move In Naval History

People were posting about the laziest thing they’ve ever seen, so here’s this one my buddy shared with me.

He was sitting on a Navy Vessel eating breakfast one morning in the officer’s lounge of the ship when an Operations Officer (an OPS) comes in. This man was a walking zombie in the mornings. My buddy wasn’t sure if he could really say he saw him awake because he could honestly believe he was eating his bagel while still asleep. He sat down across from him bagel in hand, bleary-eyed and possibly asleep. As time went on, the officer got more and more upset.

My buddy had seated himself with his back to one of the portholes. All he felt was the warm sun on his back. This half-asleep officer sat down to a giant circle of light coming from the porthole into his half closed eyes. He tried to endure it and continue on with his bagel, but it looked painful. Between every bite he was squinting and sighing and looking ncreasingly pissed off. It’s like he hadn’t quite remembered how to be a human for the day.

But my buddy was wrong about the officer’s helplessness, because that officer had a plan. My buddy still can’t decide if what happened next was a stroke of genius or the laziest thing he’s ever seen. The zombie officer stopped chewing his bagel to pick up the phone. Slowly but surely he dialed the bridge and in his famous half-asleep voice said “Heeeey. It’s the OPS. Could you shift our barpat?.....Yeah, one six five. Thanks.” And he hung up the phone. He continued to sit there, squinting and waiting, the sun still in his eyes.

It didn’t take him long to understand what had happened. Within a minute the light moved out of the officer’s eyes. He watched as the giant circle of sun slid off of the officer’s face as the barpat was moved. It went from the OPS’ face onto the wall next to him and allowed him to eat his bagel in peace. When my buddy realized what had happed he was immediately struck by the sheer brilliance of the situation. This OPS essentially changed the course of our trip, just to remove the sun from his eyes.

This man literally changed the course of a ship with thousands of tons of steel and hundreds of people on it so that he could eat a bagel without sun in his eyes. He did this instead of going of a different seat or asking my buddy to switch. It was amazing.

At this point my buddy still couldn’t decide if the officer was awake and genius or asleep and lazy. The officer slowly picked up his bagel and it occurred to my buddy that the brilliant man didn’t understand the genius of what he himself had done. Then, between bites, he looked up at my buddy and gave him the faintest grin before returning to eat his bagel. He knew. He knew exactly what he had done.