Early AM submarine breakfast prep ambience.

I am obsessed with the minutia of submarine voyages and there’s no books out there that can slake my middle-aged hunger for non-Clancy submarine stories. I’m more interested in the banal, what is work like when you’re job puts you far underwater and beyond rescue.

I’m positive I would feel the need to constantly ask shipmates how "we’re doing." I’m not even talking mission — “how are we doing on food?” “Are we sure we've charted all the underwater mountains?”

Not even amusing questions to read in a podcast description let alone under staggering amounts of water pressure.

I feel like hypochondria would be a terrible attribute in a submariner. Like the type of hypochondria exacerbated by weekend afternoons watching mild freak show cable telivision about bizarre medical diagnosis. Silent heart attacks, fugues that strike while you bathe. People that probably believe actual murders are hosted by Keith Morrison. And John Quiñones might jump out from behind any counter when a suburban mom loses her **** on a barista.

I would be a worse candidate for a submarine than the guy tapping "I am U-571 destroy me" morse code in that Matthew McConaughey sub movie.

But, administer that submarine **** directly into my veins. I love it (If you have any books recommendations along the lines of Blind Man's Bluff, torpedo them over... via comment or email —

Look, I doubt the Navy lets folks set up microphones on modern vessels. Maybe if the Titanic guy promised to make Red October 2 or Das Boot 2 they would let him drop a zoom mic in a ship's galley. But for now we will be riding in a fictionalized submarine. During breakfast prep.