Gluttons and the unclean…
A guy called Lunchbucket- AB day man, on a laker… 400 plus pounds, one pair of bib overalls that he wore all the time. Like 5 teeth in his head. Insulin dependent diabetic. Didn’t appear to shower. Rolled his own smokes, two pack a day man.
“If you don’t eat as much as you can you’re losing money” was his galley philosophy.
Watched him -Drink from a gallon jug of milk, then take a bottle of herseys syrup, dump it in, shake it up. Drinks most of the gallon of now choc milk, and then pours the remnants into the Hershey’s bottle, shakes that, drinks it.
Shortly there after drank a whole half gallon of orange juice.
One day at breakfast I decided I was going to have an ice cream sandwich at break time in the mid morning- I was getting in shape and avoiding bad food, so I was looking forward to it. There was a fresh box of ice cream sandwiches (like a 24 pack) in the freezer.
Later in the a.m. discover them to be gone. I’m looking in the freezer puzzled look on my face. Another AB, Tracy sees me and just says “Lunchbucket” and laughs.
He would also take all the left overs to his room and stash them. In drawers, overhead cableways, closets. His reliefs would find moldering plastic-wrapped hamburgers while settling into the cabin he had occupied.
And on another ship we had a chief cook nicknamed “the sandwich artist” for obvious reasons. Why make a meal when you can serve sandwiches, right?
He would back his own plain Jane bread which he was super proud of- and if you got a sandwich he’d always cut it in half, after pressing his thumb in the middle to give a reference point for the cut. Always a pile of little round sandwich middle pieces, carefully nibbled around, in the trash after lunch.
Got a bonus apparently by reducing grocery bill; gradually over time there the coffee got worse and worse, and variety dropped off.
The balance was his subordinate cook, who was great, but the sandwich artist always tried to hobble him in some way- “your gonna make chicken Parmesan for dinner, use chicken thighs with bone-in…”