Badass Tales: Deriving Pie

Then Petty Officer "Simple" Sailor before being busted down two pay grades for a late night unauthorized appropriation of cherry pie from the wardroom pantry of the USS Billy Badass. Sailor contends that the only reason he got written up and busted at captain's mast was that he didn't share enough pie with Ensign Tweed and Master Chief Bones. He says he stepped forward because Captain Humphrey Caine was threatening to "tear the ship apart" and use "geometrical logic" to find out "who stole the cherry pie." He claims that evidence was suppressed during the hearing. The injustice! Oh well. A couple or six beers during the next port call after completing 90 days restriction and extra duty and all was forgiven.

Correction: In a previous version of this story I wrote that the cherry pie was appropriated from the ship's galley. The pie was actually appropriated from the wardroom pantry. Enlisted men did not get cherry pie, cherries being the preserve of officer country. The ship's cooks did make fresh donuts on occasion for the enlisted men. I have been told they were quite tasty, went well with Petty Officer "Chuck' Jones cowboy coffee, and were quite invigorating during midwatches.

Seaman Sailor was asked about his guilty smile. His reply was: "I was born with that guilty smile." He also said: "My [ship's] unstated policy was to beg, borrow or steal whatever you needed to complete your mission. I can neither confirm nor deny that I was executing my [ship's] unstated policy." He then said: "That pie was screaming to be liberated from the wardroom pantry."

Seaman Sailor was asked about the availability of vanilla ice cream on the Badass. He has told me that the USS Billy Badass had a soft serve ice cream machine. It was operational during all meals, breakfast, dinner, supper and mid-rats. It was even operational during General Quarters.

Seaman Sailor was asked about the Command getting "their tightly whiteys in a knot over a little pie" and "how inconsequential" this was "in the grand scheme of things." His reply:  "At sea, on the USS Billy Badass, under the command of Captain Humphrey Caine, little things were treated with great importance, important things were treated as inessential. Attention to detail and all that.Then again, cherry pie!"

In summary, Simple sez: "this cherry pie was some pie. Unreal. Worth getting busted over. Might even have been worth going to war over it" and "the cherries were not from this world."

(This story is entirely the product of the author's mind, with bits and pieces begged, borrowed and derived from the excellent film, "The Caine Mutiny.")