Column: Cruise vacation reinforces need to live by rules of life

Staff

Published Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Al Batt, Tales from Exit 22

It had to happen sooner or later.

My wife and I went on a cruise. She had waited a long time to go on a cruise.

Women have a lot more patience then men because they live longer. We went on a cruise that was one of those combination work and vacation things that life has been kind enough to bless me with. We went where the ship took us - the Bahamas.

I had to break one of my rules for living to go on the cruise. I make it a rule to never be larger

than the car I drive or the room that I sleep in.

We stayed in room called a cabin. It was a very small one. It had a living room, a dining room, a bath, a kitchen, and a bedroom. Unfortunately, they were all the same room.

It was so small that the furniture was painted on the wall so there'd be room for the oars. I had to go outside to change my mind. When we sat around the cabin, we sat around the cabin. The room sat two comfortably as long as one sat on the toilet. When I put the key in the lock, it scratched the paint on the far wall.

We had prepared for the small cabin by taking yoga lessons just so we would be able to sit in it.

We were on a ship (a boat has gravy in it) of the Norwegian Cruise Line. We were completely lutefisk-free and had to stop only twice to ask for directions. We spent most of our time at an elevation approximating sea level. You could tell that we were on a classy cruise. The restrooms had shampoo that came in little packets like ketchup.

The ship was filled with vacationing folks who believed that the only thing better than a good education is a good buffet. There is moderation in nothing you do on a cruise ship. You have the opportunity to get plenty of exercise on ship.

Most of the exercise is for jaws and teeth. If you're cruising, your diet is going to take a bruising.

You eat 73 meals a day while you are onboard. They call it grazing. I guess they do that in the hopes of holding down the incidence of cannibalism. They have an all-chocolate buffet at midnight. “All-chocolate” and “midnight” are words that should not be used in the same sentence. I walked to the banquet room just to see the chocolate buffet. From this experience, I came up with another rule to live by. Never get between chocolate and people who love chocolate. Oh, the humanity. I was beaten like a pi+-ata for being a better door than a window.

The buffets were too much for a man who considers a package of microwaved popcorn too much to eat in one night. The food was completely devoured. That broke another rule of mine, that no meal is complete without leftovers. I have been to the land of milk and honey. This cruise took me to the land of Milk of Magnesia.

The ship had a health club, a casino, an entertainment stage, and a gift shop. I thought about visiting the gift shop, but I didn't have to. The cruise line gave both my wife and me a jacket. My shopping was done.

A floating city with many acres of deck, the ship had a crew five times the population of my hometown. It was a ship and not a boat. A boat has gravy in it.

Most of the folks on the cruise ship maintained the activity level of veal. The shared belief was that anything worth not doing was worth not doing over and over again.

The numbing relaxation gave me time to think. Did I jiggle the handle the last time I used it or is the toilet still running at home?

I spent time investigating the operations of the toilets on the ship. I talked to most of the 800-member crew to find out the intricacies of the ship's toilets which had no handles to jiggle.

Photographers took photos of everyone and then displayed them the next day. You had to buy

the photos to stop the photographers from stalking you.

Complete strangers told me how little they had paid for the cruise because of the connections they had with a brother/cousin/neighbor's kid/demented travel agent.

My wife and I are landlubbers once again. We are better people for the cruise experience.

Although my wife sometimes feels like she is still rowing.

(Hartland resident Al Batt writes a column for the Tribune each Wednesday and Sunday.)

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