How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.”

- Fred Allen

Today was an entire day at sea while we sail south to get to Cabo. This was fine with me because we could just do whatever we wanted.

Whatever we wanted turned out to be getting burned by the damn sun which, by the way, is about 43 feet above the water out here in the Pacific.

After a waddling up to the trough for breakfast, we gorged and I came to realize that unlike a Navy ship where you have to wait in long lines and your full compliment of food is not guaranteed (sorry, pal, all we have left is one dried out fish patty and three soggy fries…), the food here is plentiful and the lines are short. So it’s easy to get massive quantities of food here.

Great.

We wandered the ship which I must say is freakin’ massive. It has something like 10 decks and it took awhile to get through my thick skull that we were on deck 6 and the food was on deck 9. As long as you know that, you’ll be fine.

At the center is a great atrium with a bar and glass elevators. It serves kind of like a known point where you can get your bearings and I must say, it is quite impressive. OK, it has cheesy paintings all the way up but the top has a rose-colored dome so that the entire open shaft is bathed in pink light. But it’s cool.

I am enjoying my book which is not what I should be reading. I should be reading something abut Saudi Arabia but instead, I went for Hannibal Rising, about the Hannibal Lector character from Silence of the Lambs. I’m tearing through it like a plate of brains, fava beans, and a nice bottle of Chianti.

We all decided to go out on deck to get some sun.

How much did we get?

All of it!

I thought I had enough of a base tan to get by but it turns out my chest and stomach had another opinion on the situation. But I didn’t get lobstered as bad as some people. Later in the night we saw people who I can’t figure out WHAT they were thinking.

“Yeah, I’m pasty white so I’ll sit out here 43 feet from the sun with no sun block and my golden tan is just 6 hours away!!!”

Idiots.

Speaking of idiots, so I’m out there in the sun and the thought pops into my head, hey, a beer would taste really good right now. So I flag down one of the English-As-A-Never-Learned-Language pool boys and order me up a simple order. I want one Coors Light pleasethankyouverymuch.

They only have it in a can here so right from the get-go, I’m making sacrifices, people.

The guy leaves and fast-forward ½ hour and I still don’t see the guy. I’m starting to get really pissed as time keeps ticking away, me sans-beer.

Now I don’t remember what my guy looks like so I don’t know who to ask. Furthermore, I don’t want to order another one because I was under the impression that when he took my order, he charged my card. So If I get another one or if he never comes back, I’m charged regardless.

I really didn’t want to go through this on my vacation but I guess I had no choice.

Carrie didn’t want to deal with the not-so-passive aggression I was emanating so she got up to go get me another beer.

Meanwhile, some guy comes back to the couple sitting next to us and tries to get him to sign for another beer he didn’t order.

It turns out the waiter brought HIM the beer and he took it, ignorant that I was waiting for it. He apologized and offered to buy me a beer to replace the one he drank.

At the exact same time we were trying to figure this out, yet another waiter shows up and I’m not sure if he is my guy or not but I unload on him how I ordered a beer an hour ago and the guy never showed up.

He hands me a bucket and says that he’ll give it to me for my troubles.

Then the guy next to me gives me the one he bought for me.

Then Carrie returns with a Michelob Ultra.

I go from having no beer to SIX!!!

As the waiter is leaving, the guy next to me runs after him and asks him if he charged him for one beer or the bucket. Ends up he charged him for the bucket so after berating him about only intending to buy ONE beer, he had the guy adjust the bill.

It looked like we got some free beer and were all happy about it…

….. until the pool boy came back and snagged the rest of the bucket. I inquired “What the hell are you doing?”

He said the guy only paid for one beer so he came back for the rest of the bucket.

So now I was down to two beers and only one I paid for.

I think. I don’t know, the whole thing was so damn convoluted and all I wanted was a fucking beer.

We stayed out there long enough to think we did not burn but in fact, burned like the lobsters we were. When we peeled our redden bodies off the deck chairs with an audible crunch and headed inside to play the Battle of the Sexes.

Cruise ships have a lot of these games they put on at certain times and you have to plan around getting to a certain spot at a certain time if you want to participate.

This particular one was one of those “men against the women” games where they ask the men “women” questions and vice versa.

So we got questions about sewing, fashion, cooking, etc. Where was the gay guy when you needed him, right?

The women got questions about sports, cars, and more sports. Seems we men are pretty two dimensional.

I was thinking I would be in luck if they asked anything about Sarah MacLachlan but no such luck. I was pretty lost on most of the questions but in the end, not only did we beat the panties off the ladies but I was allowed to retain some semblance of self-respect and dignity by NOT knowing any of the women questions.

After the trouncing, it was time to get ready for dinner and tonight was a little bit extra special since it was one of two “Formal Nights” which meant I got to dress up basically in the same outfit I wore when I took Carrie to her special anniversary dinner a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, it’s the same coat and I don’t want to hear about it. If they had “Under Armour” nights, you would have seen enough variety to make your head explode.

We got all dressed up, the ladies decked out in lovely dresses, me in my coat, and Alex with every piece of clothing coming from my closet, save underwear, socks, and shoes.

For this special night, they broke out the lobster and the excitement was in the air. Everyone wanted a piece of that lobster as did I but I also wanted steak so that’s what I got, knowing that I could play splitsies with Carrie.

Alex had never had lobster and you would think it was In & Out the way he absolutely fell in love with it. Every bite was appreciated and he really couldn’t wrap his mind around just how spectacularly good it was.

Great, my son goes apeshit over a meal and it has to be lobster. Not something cheap, friggin’ lobster!

“Hey mom, can you cook up some lobster tonight?”

Great.

You know when you plan out a special night for you and your family? You might set up a dinner and a show? It’s an accomplishment and you give up your evening to spend with your family. You get dressed up, leave the safe cocoon of your home, mingle with the unwashed masses, etc.

Well, 7 nights of that.

Seven.

It’s like an “event” every night. Get back to the cabin, clean up, dress up, get to the dinner, get to the show, etc.

Great every once in awhile but even the best wine will make your throw up if you drink too much, right?

So we’re at the show again and tonight it’s the gayest of all gayness: a sampling of every Broadway show since they used candles for stage lighting.

I’m not much of a professional critic or anything so I have to go with what I saw. On one hand, they SEEMED to know what they were doing and there were very quick scene and costume changes as show after show after show came rolling down the pike.

What I really noticed was that the women looked normal.

What does that mean?

I mean that they looked like women. Normal women. Yes, maybe slimmer than the average woman but plumper than what you would normally see on stage or screen. They were slim enough to getting away with wearing some of the form-fitting costumes but sadly, probably too big to show up on a Broadway stage.

The guys didn’t seem to have this problem. They looked slim and muscular like you would expect.

The other thought that entered my head is where these people were from. If they were like most of the crew, they would be from all points around the globe and it made me wonder how that affected the different dance sequences which themselves were all over the board.

These are the thoughts than were trying to keep me from the fact that I was watching a distilled Broadway review put on by a cruise line (stereotypically defined to be tacky from the get-go.)

I can’t say I was thrilled at the whole experience because I’d have to hand in my man card but I’ve spent worse evenings.

Happy?

Free Advice for Today: “Clean out a different drawer in your house every week.”

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.