Kneeknocker

September of 1998 I was aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. We had just moved everything from the USS Independence onto the shitty kitty in Pearl Harbor. In transit back to Yokohama Japan, I got nicknamed "kneeknocker." Not because of my massive penis, but because I tripped.

On the new ship, we still had watertight hatches but they had installed normal looking doorways on the inside of some of those hatches. I got sent to pick up parts from AIMD and they had one of those doorways. Jake Larsen or "Gabby" and I went down and grabbed some radar parts...I grabbed a synchronizer and headed out the door back to the shop. I forgot about the hatchway (kneeknocker) and tried walking through the door without stepping over the kneeknocker.....face planted onto the synchronizer. It nearly knocked me out and Jake kept asking if I was alright. Some prick from AIMD was laughing about it and I wanted to throw that 60 lbs. synchronizer through his face.

I knocked out a few teeth and had a hell of a knot on my jaw and a big swollen lip. For several months people called me "kneeknocker" because I made a stupid mistake. Now it's funny, but I didn't see the humor in it for years.