Cruisin'

Ethel and I just got back from our vacation/honeymoon. We took a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 from New York City to the Caribbean and back. It was an incredible trip - we sailed out of Brooklyn and met the Queen Elizabeth 2 and the Queen Victoria next to the Statue of Liberty (first/last time in history the three ships will sail out of port together), then continued southward.

We'd been on the Queen Mary 2 before, so we more or less knew what to expect - an elegant causal atmosphere during the days, and formal/semi-formal evenings. We couldn't have been more wrong. I don't want to sound smug, but at least half of the passengers on the ship were best characterized as "white trash."

Take, for example, Foal (not his real name, of course - he got this name because he walked around in Indianapolis Colts attire for much of the trip - I had started out calling him "Colt Boy" but switched to "Foal" because it's so close to "Fool").

We left on January 13, the same day as the Colts were playing the San Diego Chargers. The ship showed the game on a television in one of the bars onboard. There were 50 or so people in the bar watching it (Ethel and I included); most were refined, just watching. Not Foal. No, definitely not. He was jumping up and down, swearing at the TV. Before coming to the bar, I don't think many people cared who won the game, but Foal managed to turn everyone into Chargers fans; the power of negative reinforcement in action.

The crew was stressing hygiene. Everywhere you went where there was food, there were soap dispensers and/or crew with portable soap bottles trying to squirt soap into your hands. On the one hand, it was very reassuring. But on the other hand, it was utterly pointless. They were trying to avoid an outbreak of norovirus - a noble cause. But it's norovirus, not norobacteria, so I can't imagine an antibacterial soap would have any effect.

As the saying goes, "my hands were clean." But it didn't matter. So many other people weren't, it was nigh impossible not to be exposed to whatever everyone else brought on board. One man was totally disgusting. I saw him at the juice machine. He drank the last bits in his water bottle, and then shoved his bottle under the spigot from the machine, touching it, and started to refill the bottle.

I cringed when I saw this, which he for some reason understood to mean "can I get in there and fill my glass with your backwash?" and offered to move aside for me. I said "no, that's disgusting" and said I saw his bottle touch the spigot. He denied it. I said I saw it, and he responded by apologizing. Well, an apology, that'll work. Yes, I see all of the germs dying now thanks to your apology.

Thankfully, there were many other places to eat and many gorgeous islands to get off the ship at so we didn't have to spend too much time hanging with the huddled masses yearning to share their germs.