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.

I'll have the botchulism burger please

The regular grill guy is still on vacation, but he seems to have trained his assistant well. I had the grill special today in the cafeteria - it was a meatball sub more or less.

While GrillBoy was grilling my roll, a guy came up behind me in line. He asked for a hamburger. GrillBoy went back to the refrigerator and pulled out a patty and threw it on the grill, then proceeded to take my roll off the grill, with the same gloved hand he had just touched the burger with.

No way! I can just about feel the e-coli coming on now!

Fly, be free

I took a quick trip to visit family last weekend. It was mostly uneventful (I'm speaking only of the flights), but a couple of things stick in my mind...

1. United Airlines lady - what's your problem? At 7:00AM, I'm really not in the mood to be berated. I arrived at 7:01 for a 7:40 flight; That's 40 minutes before the flight in my book. You didn't hear me bitching about the flight leaving an hour late, did you? Hmmm, wouldn't that mean I arrived 1:40 before the flight?
   
   You need to lighten up a little, it's the holiday season - you know, peace on earth, good will toward man. Maybe a better career for you would be prison guard? And, no, you weren't imagining things - the lady who checked me in and I were laughing about you.
   
   Update: United Lady Bitch - I was reading a United ticket jacket yesterday and noticed this:
   
   It says 30 minutes not 40 minutes. You're not supposed to just make shit up, sheesh! Now you're United Lady Lying Bitch.
   


2. To the man in seat 9C, United flight 51, Dec 17, 2007. You're gross. It's just that simple.
   
   Why would you have possibly thought it was ok to clip your nails at your seat and shoot nail bits about the cabin? It might be back home in the Ozarks, but it's not in civilization. It's just plain gross.
   

On that note, here's something I've been wondering about.. While a plane is taxiing after having landed, you can now pull out your cell phone (if you can do so without getting out of your seat, wink wink) and call your parole officer or whomever. Why is it that I can't also pull out my MP3 player and start listening to music? Is a cell phone somehow special?

Ewww! Gross!!

Ok, people, let's role play for a bit.

Imagine you work at a fast food restaurant. You're responsible for making sandwiches. You're wearing those plastic gloves for a reason. It's called hygiene (pronounced "Hi Jean"). When the register lady has problems, you're allowed to help, but you really, really need to take off your gloves and put on a clean pair when you're done helping and go back to making sandwiches. You never know what I did with the money that I gave you.

Scenario Two. Imagine you're a customer walking through a farmers market. There are many stands around you with many wonderful looking foods. Some of the stands even have samples. If you look closely, you might even see tongs for selecting the samples. Use them. Wait! Don't take me so literally. Use them for selecting the sample, don't use them for putting the samples in your mouth. Try this - select a sample, pick it up with tongs, drop it into your other hand, insert it into your mouth. Seems reasonable, no?

Consider the alternative - select a sample, pick it up with the tongs, deposit it in your mouth. See the problem? Wretch, wretch. But fear not, you're not alone, turns out there are people even more disgusting than you around. Let's move on to the final scenario.

Scenario Three. We never officially met. You were filling your cup with water from the tap; I was getting silverware and a napkin for use with my nigh-lunch (grill guy - you never cease to disappoint me - it's grilled cheese, how can you possibly screw that up too!). With your right hand, you were holding your cup under the faucet. With your left, you were picking your nose. Yes, you were picking your nose. Call it "scratching an itch" if you like, the reality was that you were picking your nose.

Maybe you thought no one noticed. Maybe you thought I often gagged when selecting silverware. You were wrong on both counts. The reality is that more often than not, people don't sit at the water faucet and pick their fucking noses. They know better.

'nuff said.