Cruisin’ Stupid
The Source
A fellow writer told me that if I’d write about my excursions I could take off a portion of the trip on my tax return. I think he meant travel writers who write important, knowledgeable things. He must have been referring to someone else. The trouble is, I enjoy the really stupid parts of travel. Last week I loaded up a couple of adventurous travelers and we attacked the Carnival Cruise Line’s version of Bahama-Mania. Fly to Houston, fly to Orlando, hop on a cruise ship and enjoy the sublime silliness of a few days in the Caribbean. Cruising is no longer a rich man’s game. If you’re flexible and shop around, the cruise industry is hungry to fill up those boats. They’ve seen the baby boomers coming their direction and have invested mega-bucks into some unbelievably over-the-top boats, and when the Carnival Sensation or Royal Caribbean Bonga-Bonga or Disney Mouse Floating House takes to the waves with empty rooms, they lose money. Believe me, they’re going to keep making the Baked Alaska whether your room is filled or not. Cruising is often fodder for late night comics and satire, but I think it’s pretty sweet to have someone make my bed every time I get up, put mints on my pillow at night, straighten my pile of socks, and perhaps it’s because I live in Arenzville where such things seldom happen, but it makes me happy to return to my room at night to find that my steward has sculpted my bath towel into the shape of a porcupine. I just don’t get much of that where I live. And yes, ice sculptures are silly and that’s what makes them delightful, especially when you get to see a lanky young man from Indonesia crack out a 300-pound head of an American Indian chief in less than 20 minutes. I’m not sure if it’s a highly salable skill in the world’s work market, but it’s darned cool to watch. And never in a Jacksonville restaurant have I been asked to wave my ironed napkin in the air while the waiters dance around the tables singing the Macarena. When I got back to town I stopped at Hardees and ordered a cheeseburger. I picked up my cloth napkin and glanced at the group of old boys drinking coffee. Would they join in? Probably not. I wiped my mouth with the napkin and took my sandwich to go. If dumb people watching it your thing, then cruising is your game. There’s something inherently weird in the mind of Americans who think that if they get far enough away from home they can act and dress as if no one notices. I do. If the mayor of New York City can ban large soft drinks, then perhaps we as a grossly oversized nation should consider prohibiting bikinis and Speedo’s for anyone weighing more than a Honda. When they tell you to come to the Caribbean for the sights, they are talking about more than the palm trees and sandy beaches, man. My little band of Illinois sailors were treated to some of the most outrageous strains on fabric and elastic known to man, and some of these oversized sun worshippers had built in gyroscopes that would automatically point the most offensive portion of their anatomy in my direction. I never suffer from seasickness, but I’ve often been the victim of “cruiser’s gag” when an amply proportioned lady bent over toward me while I was sipping my morning coffee. I pray wherever I go and more than once I sent supplications heavenward that the strap would hold and the thong would stay where it belonged. I wanted to run down to the pool and shout, “Free Willy!” Dumb, overpriced drinks in coconut shells, happy faces drawn into the sauce around your dessert, rumba lessons on the Lido deck, waiters whose main task is to scrape the errant crumbs off your bread plate, a tsunami of silverware, a fresh flower floating atop your Eggs Benedict, and a fellow from Argentina who places the napkin in your lap…luxurious, silly overkill. Cruisin’ stupid and no one seems to mind. I’ll admit that it takes a bit of self-justification to take a cruise. After all, most of what you do on such a trip is absolutely unnecessary and most is completely over the top. When I dine I don’t really need to start the meal with a choice of caviar, escargot, cold strawberry soup or fried alligator, but somewhere out there someone …I hope deserving and needy…is being paid to talk the sturgeon into giving up its eggs, dive town to disturb the snails, pick the strawberries, and catch the gator. It bothers my sensibility to be waited upon so meticulously by waiters, stewards, bar tenders, and deck scrubbers from third world countries, but I also know that working on a cruise ship is undoubtedly more profitable for them than the jobs available in their hometown. I hope I’m not just trying to convince myself, and I take some solace in the fact that I know a bit about acting, and when Augustine from Sri Lanka folds my washcloth into the shape of a squid and says he enjoys having me aboard, I think he means it. I hope he does. I like cruisin’ stupid.