Tommy, the flatulent tugboat

Camera toting tourists used to yell, "Tommy, say cheese". Now, it's "Who cut the cheese?"

They painted a face with a smile on the stack so it didn’t feel like work whenever they went out. They might be called upon to go out almost anytime, day or night.

That was the day Tommy the tugboat was born. That was a little over a year ago.

These days, the only day off Tommy has is Sunday. The regular crew has Sundays off and one other day during the week on some sort of rotating basis that I don't quite understand. Tugboats must have a better union than tugboat workers.

Tommy trolls New york City's East River. Pushing, pulling and cajoling the larger boats and barges up and down the New York waterways.  Sometimes he goes west and works the Hudson River, sometimes he stays on the east side of Manhattan Island and smiles at the tourists walking above on the Brooklyn Bridge as he swims underneath them.

In the engine room they have a little frig and camping-style burner where Captain Joe McCarthy cooks for the guys or just for himself if the crew was hung over from the night and can’t even think about food lest they heave overboard. But a lot of times they just order out.

Sometimes Tommy gets rented out. He doesn't like that. He doesn't like being a funky, friendly tourist boat for groups of four or more. 
Tommy, you don't have to put on the red light.

Someone walking along the dock near the South Street Seaport recently said he saw Tom's smiley face chewing something that looked a lobster roll that he washed it down with a sasparilla. If that was true it was probably from Luke's Lobster, a few blocks away.
The passerby also said - and it's a matter of public record - that Tom’s stack billowed white smoke for a few seconds later. And then...
"Burp"
"Hiccup"
"Fart"
Excuse me, but the fart part I don't believe. 

To paint a face on Tommy is one thing but to paint him flatulent, a polluter of our waterways is quite another. Now, every time a foul order rises from the East River or the Hudson for that matter, Tommy is looked upon with suspicious eyes. Even by little children. It's no longer, "Tommy, say cheeese." It's "Yuck, what's that? Who cut the cheese?" 

Pardon the pun but that stinks. Even if it was Tommy so what? We've all been there, done that. Isn't that what Britney Spears was singing about in "Oops, I did it again"?

Let it go for God's sake. It's all enough to wipe the smile off Tommy the tugboat's face for good. Or, worse, turn it into a frown. Nobody wants that to happen. 

That said, the maritime commission does say that as a safety precaution every tugboat in the city must have an auditory device to signal other ships in the harbor. And I don't remember seeing a whistle attached to Tom's stack.  

Maybe you shouldn't book Tommy for your child's next birthday party. Toot, toot. 

Toot.