The King of the Cruise Collectors

As some of my five readers may know, last year I took a cruise to Bermuda and was baffled by the subculture that is the cruise ship. I quickly learned that cruise goers are in fact collectors, racking up trips like more sophisticated people might rack up original art. Not only do these collectors show off the number of cruises they’ve been on, vessels they’ve boarded, destinations they’ve ended up in and days at sea, they also feel the need to compete with other passengers by asking “how many?” (For more on this past trip and categories of collectors, read my post from last year.)

Well readers, you will be happy to know that this summer I embarked on cruise number 2, officially launching my career as a confirmed collector. No more would I lower my eyes in shame when asked how many I’ve been on.

Or so I thought. The piano lounge of the Norwegian Star, my recent Bermuda-bound cruise ship (I can now say I’ve “done” Holland and Norwegian), was filled with cheesy cruise goers. Everyone came to hear ‘The Piano Man’, an incredible piano player who sang everything from Billy Joel to Elton John to . . . well, whatever, you get the idea. Each night after my three course meal and bottle of wine I’d stop in to listen before the onboard entertainment started. Being increasingly anal with age, and distraught over the fact that Norwegian has no fartin clocks anywhere on board because we are supposed to be “off the clock”, I leaned over into the space of the large old man next to me and tried to read his watch.

“You’ll never see the numbers,” he said, unclasping the monstrosity from his wrist. “The face is transparent . . . check it out.” The five-pound watch was subsequently thrust into my hands. Panicking over the sure spread of norovirus, I did an obligatory look over and handed it back.

“It’s REAL porcelain,” he said proudly. “On my last cruise my watch got wet and broke. Nothing is going to break this sucker. It can go under 100 feet of water.” My eyes widened.
“Where did you get it?” I asked, feigning rapture.

“Home shopping network,” he said, making a face as if I should have known that. Where else? My interest in the watch opened a can of worms and the next thing you know, he’s asking the magic question. “So . . .uh . . .how many?”

“Two!” I say, excited that I can say more than one. “Last year I did Holland.”

“Pfft, that’s an old person’s cruise,” he said, dismissing me with a wave of his hand and obviously unaware of his own advanced age.

“Well, how many have you had?” I asked, crestfallen.

“This is my 64th cruise,” he said. No readers, no typo here. SIXTY FOUR FAHREIKEN CRUISES.

“Holy shit,” I said, forgetting my manners.

“I am a VIP on this ship. When I get onboard, the waiters know my name. You wanna know who I had dinner with last night? The captain, that’s who. I don’t pay for a single drink on this ship. All of them are on the house. Guess what happened to me last night? The captain asked me which I like better, Norwegian or Holland. I say, and this is the truth, I like Norwegian better but Holland offers king crab on their menu. Guess what I get delivered to me tonight at dinner. You’ll never guess.”

“Um, King Crab?”

“You're goddamned right.”

“But how does one rack up 64 cruises?” I asked, bewildered and feeling inadequate.

“I take one a few times a year. And then there are “repositioning” cruises. When the ship makes its way to a destination to start a new trip. You get BONUS points for those,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “My grandson is five, he’s already been on five cruises. A few months ago I got home from a Caribbean cruise, stayed a week, got bored and tired of snow, called them up and said, put me on another.”

Leaning toward me, winking like a used car salesman, he moved in for the kill.

“If you listen to me and take my advice, you take those repositioning cruises, become a member, and take advantage of their onboard kickbacks for booking next year’s cruise, soon enough you’ll be at my level.”

My eyes light up like a slot machine as a voice inside my head says yes . . . one day you can be at his level. On your 64th cruise. Showing off your home shopping network watch to a cruising newbie while your seemingly mail order bride half your age and size sits primly beside you, letting you regale other ladies in the piano lounge with tales of your great sea adventures.

Let me end this tale by issuing a Cry for Help. Please readers. If you ever hear me bragging about hitting double digits . . . if I start to reposition, demand king crab for dinner or spend more time on a boat than on land . . . help me. Oh lordy, help me. And organize an immediate intervention. Preferably on ‘Royal’– I haven’t tried that line yet.

Right on, Mr. Snivels

This time of year—with pollen a flyin’ and people a snifflin’ at my office—always takes me back to high school English with Mr. S. English had always been my favorite subject, one I later majored in at college. But the year I had Mr. S. almost made me hate the subject, and was my first experience with true panic-inducing fear.

Mr. S. seemed ancient to my young teenage self (he was probably only in his forties). A shock of white feathery hair swept across his head. He was short and stout, his diamond pattern sweaters always taut over his rotund belly. His face looked porcine, with big full cheeks that hung down into jowls, a turned up nose, and a splotchy redness that suggested alcoholism or high blood pressure. His Spartan desk was clear of any clutter, and only boasted a box of Kleenex.

With other “old” teachers, we students had the run of the show—swinging from rafters, talking back, throwing paper. But Mr. S. somehow commanded a militant discipline; each of us sat in our desk, hands folded, looking straight ahead. Nobody dare flinch.

There was one thing, however, that really got Mr. S.’s panties in a bunch—and it was something none of us did on purpose or could control. Sniffling.

The first time we learned of his pet peeve was a few days into the beginning of school. Some poor slouch sniffled and Mr. S., who was writing on the blackboard, suddenly stopped, shoulders hunched in annoyance, before slowly turning around, cheeks flaring up, hands shaking. With undisguised disgust he literally growled: “USE. A. TISSUE.” The boy who had committed the crime timidly approached the desk, took a tissue and returned to his seat. Wiping some snot away, he left the balled up tissue on the corner of his desk and continued to sniffle.

Mr. S. put down the chalk and turned around. By this time his face had taken on the shade of a beet, and looked like a balloon that had been filled with too much helium. “BLOW. YOUR. NOSE,” he said dangerously before turning back to the blackboard. But what teenager likes to blow their nose in class? It’s a recipe for disaster, and can only end with visible boogers hanging out or some other source of fodder for bullies or teasing.

Tension filled the air. The only sound in the room was Mr. S.’s clickety-clack chalk working its way across the board. I was afraid to swallow. But snot boy couldn’t help himself…his faucet was a drippin’. He sniffled—a big one—and all hell broke loose.

Mr. Smith threw down his chalk, jumped over his desk with the finesse of a football player and grabbed the boy by his collar. “GET OUT!” he shouted, escorting the boy to the hallway. “GET OUTTTTT.”

We all looked around, laughing nervously while inwardly assessing our own nasal passages and whether or not they had the potential to leak. Throughout the year, especially during winter and spring, a record number of students were thrown out of Mr. S.’s class. Nerd, dirtbag, punk or prep—nobody who had the sniffles was safe.

I remember being anxious to go to class. I remember using the rest room beforehand to blow my nose. I remember HATING Mr. S. with all of my being and thinking how utterly unfair he was. I remember thinking: what’s the big fartin deal about a sniffle?

Now in my mid-thirties, I can tell you what the big fartin deal about a sniffle is. IT’S ANNOYING. As I sit at my desk amid the sounds of coworkers' throat clearing, coughing up of phlegm, dry hacking coughs, over-the-top sneezing, and sniffles galore, I can honestly say that I totally sympathize with Mr. S. and totally "get" him.

If you’re still out there Mr. S., if you’re still alive and torturing students with poor immune systems or allergies, or even if you are in an old age home ready to go postal on your snivelling fellow residents, all I have to say to you is this: I hear you, man! Right on!

How Very Dare You!

Photo by  blmurch, via Flickr 

It’s spring and one should be humming and enjoying the strange OTT early heat, but unfortunately one (in other words, me) still has to deal with annoying commuters.

The day in question started off good enough. I was on the way uptown to babysit for my BFF. Since I had serious arse ache from sitting too long at work, I decided to walk several blocks to the East Side and catch the 6 train uptown. A coworker mentioned that if I just walked a few blocks more, I could catch an express bus that shot right uptown with only a few stops. She gave me specific directions and explained that a separate machine was used to purchase the ticket for the bus.

I was already happy just to find the bus and the machines, since I don’t have the best internal GPS. But then I was overcome with feelings of “all is well with the universe” when an attractive man in a suit offered me his ticket when he saw me fumbling with the machine. I was clearly not “in the express bus know,” and he took pity on me. I grasped the ticket and smiled, excited for the free bus ride. But boy, did I end up paying for it.

Squeezed between old people with stale breath and teenagers with noxious BO—the kind of stench that warrants a parent discussion that it’s time to use deodorant—I held on to a germ-infested bar and closed my eyes to block out the “others.” The first two stops glided by, and I was starting to feel giddy at the prospect of getting uptown quickly, above ground. At the next stop, a man who thought he was cool but looked like he just stepped off the set of a Miami Vice remake, barged on. He wore a cheap suit and dark shades and immediately started to barrel towards the back of the bus. That’s when I heard the annoying commuter strike.

“What do you THINK YOU ARE DOING?” a woman’s voice raised above the rest in an impossible-to-take-seriously overdramatic voice (think of Meryl Streep’s rendition of Julia Childs.)

“You PUSHED me!” she continued her outrage. Then, “You should be ASHAMED of yourself.”

I couldn’t help but giggle, as the woman’s voice conjured thoughts of the funny British sketch comedy program “The Catherine Tate Show” and her character Derek Faye, who routinely and dramatically screams out, “How very dare you!” (If you haven’t seen it, check it out here).

“DRIVER…STOP THE BUS” the woman called out, at which point my fellow New Yorkers started to lose patience, murmuring ‘what the hell’ and shifting in their seats.

“Look lady, it’s a crowded bus, it’s called ‘Riding the Bus 101’ here, maybe if you’d moved over more, I wouldn’t have pushed you,” said Don Johnson.

A sound like an injured animal spread across the bus as people reached their heads up to see what the ruckus was all about. “So now you’re going to INSULT me in addition to ASSAULT me!”

“Give me a break!” “Shut up!” “Get over it!” were the responses from various riders. But the woman would not be deterred. She continued to scream at the driver to stop the bus, which he did. An overweight MTA officer waddled over and asked Don Johnson to “step aside,” while the complainer (I could now see her: 60s, dress suit that looked like my grandmother’s couch upholstery, a tight bun and bedazzled in gold jewelry) stood red faced and indignant as people shuffled off the bus, shooting daggers at her.

Don Johnson took one look at the officer, laughed, and ran away as the complainer screamed “STOP THAT MAN!” The fellow passengers were told that the bus was now a crime scene and had to wait for another bus. No express bus came, so I got on a local, which stopped on every street from the 50s to the 70s. To make a long story short, I would have arrived uptown faster walking.

So to the bedazzled annoyer in question: Beware. Should our paths cross the next time I take the express bus, I will personally boot ya butt off if you start up with your shenanigans. YOU should be ashamed of yourself for preventing a crapload of people from getting home after a long, hard work/school day. That’s right! How very dare you!

Abbreviations for those who aren’t “with the times”
OTT: Over The Top
BFF: Best Fartin Friend
GPS: Global Positioning System
BO: Smelly FN Body. Slap on some roll-on. Seriously.

Songs You Don’t Want to be Caught Singing in Aisle 4 of the Supermarket*

Have you ever been in the car with someone, humming a nondescript tune, when the person you’re with asks you what you’re singing? You may not have even noticed you were singing, and now, as you focus and think about it, you're horrified by the result.

 

“Erm, nothing,” you say, followed by “Hey look how lovely the foliage is!”

“Yeah…you were singing. And there are no leaves on the trees,” your companion says to your sheer vexation.

“I don’t remember.”

“Sure you do, come on!”

“I was just humming!”

“Nah, but I recognize it! What was it?”

“Oh for the love of all that lives I was singing Air Supply, OK? 'Making Love Out of Nothing At All' by freaking Air Supply. Happy Now?”

But it could be worse. You could be caught in aisle 4 of the supermarket belting out a song and be caught by, say, me—a complete stranger—as one poor muscle head in a Giants jersey recently did. I rounded the corner and I heard, quite loudly and enthusiastically:

“And I said, what about Breakfast at Tiffany’s? She said, “I think I remember the film? And as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked it,” and I said, “Well, that’s the one thing we’ve got!”

As he finished the verse, our eyes met and he turned five shades of scarlet. In response, my eyebrows raised with a look that clearly stated, “Dude, WTF are you thinking?”

What happens when your mind is hijacked and forced to sing Celine Dion or similar? How is it that we never get caught singing some hard core gansta rap or an obscure yet brilliant indie group like the Subterraneans? Oh no, it’s gotta be Hoobastank or Nickelback or anything that Casey Kasem would have put on his Top 40.

So to all of you who’ve been caught singing a strange song—including the waiter at Dish who absentmindedly sang “Abra Abra Cadabra” while Blog Commenter Jana Lia and I sat giggling and finishing up with “I wanna reach out and grab ya!”—I feel your pain. I grew up in the 80s, I liked big hair bands, and have an uncanny knack for singing music my grandmother would rock to at any given moment.

*This post may make no sense to those under 30 who have never heard of Air Supply or vinyl for that matter. Just substitute the bands I mention with any music that you wouldn’t be caught dead humming—is it too soon to be embarrassed by Bieber?

Notable Commuters: Weird Boots Guy

Fig. 1. Weird Boots

It’s been a while since I’ve just written a plain old observation. That, uh, is the name of the blog after all. And what better place to observe strange and fascinating creatures but within the MTA train system. As a creature of habit, I usually sit in the same train car every day. Unfortunately, so does a group of loud, obnoxious old men playing cards on what appears to be a pizza box. The first time I saw it, I was perplexed by how their group defied all unspoken rules of train etiquette. Whereas normally conversations or cell phone calls get you a look of death from other zombie commuters, these men shout, cheer and converse as if throwing back beers in a bar. Amid the noise of their gravelly smokers’ voices is the fluttery flipping of a deck of cards, conjuring images of leaves getting stuck in a bicycle spoke. Or similar. Not a card player myself (unless you count the drinking game “Asshole”), I have no idea what it is that has them so entranced. But I do hear them shouting things like “29? Is it 29? Whattawe got, 45 to 92?” What does it mean, readers? Anyone? Anyone?

This enigma aside, there is one passenger who gets on the train who cannot escape anyone’s attention. He is older, probably somewhere between, say 55 and 100. His tall, burly, Paul Bunyan physique is accented by a fluffy gray beard, a half smoked cigar hanging out of his mouth that he CHEWS all the way to the city, and—the icing on the cake—tall, knee-high funky black boots (see Fig. 1). The boots are what catch my attention every single day. If you only focused on them, you’d think (Punk Rocker? Goth? Motorcycle Mamma? Oktoberfest Partaker? Sadomasochist? Shit Shoveller?) until you look up and see that they are attached to Santa Claus with a bad cigar habit.

Weird Boots gets on the same car as me and immediately gravitates towards the card players like a fly to feces. He leans on the back of the six-seater they occupy and bends down, flagrantly invading their personal space. At first I thought he was part of the group—the silent observer, who, for lack of a seat, participates from above. But over the weeks, I’ve noticed he’s not. He is just a random guy, with weird boots, resting his cigar on the island pattern bald guy dealing the cards, watching every move they make like Big Brother watches all of us. When the train pulls in, he immediately exits without so much as a goodbye. The group in turn never greets his omnipresence with hello, goodbye, or what the feck are you looking at?!

Who is he readers? Only time will tell. For now I will continue to silently observe him as he silently observes them, while snapping secret photos of his boots (can I get a pair somewhere?) as I pretend to text my BFF in Spain.

Elevatoritis

I’ve been trying so hard not to let little things get to me. My therapist (look, everyone in New York has one) says that when annoying people bump into me, play loud music that blares out of their headphones, or just simply exist I should say to myself “I allow these people to inconvenience me” or “I will not let these [a-holes] change my day.” Apparently I'm some kind of perfectionist and hold people to high standards—resulting in continuous disappointment in others. I didn’t really need to pay $150 a session to figure out that peeps irritate me—bad! But though I’ve been doing better, it’s rather hard to keep a smile on one’s face when one has to ride the shittiest and most frustrating elevator that ever existed to work every morning.

I work on the 19th of 20 floors, and there are many offices and people in my building, with six inefficient elevators to cart us to our respective places of work. While some buildings generously program their elevators to stop on the lower floors on one side, and the upper levels on the other, ours does not. The result: sheer vexation when you get crammed into the small space with 10 other people and the elevator stops on floor 2. Really? You couldn’t walk up one flight of stairs?

These antiquated machines are also slow, and when I walk into the building there's always an enormous line of people waiting to get on. There are so many offenders, I don’t even know where to begin: The “I’m just going to ignore the line and waltz up to the front because I’m more important than you” rider, the “I have a double-barrel stroller with children big enough to walk” rider, the “there are already 15 people in here, three of whom are morbidly obese, but I am going to get in anyway and invade your personal space and/or breathe on you” rider, the “I’m the lazy mailman who will stop on every floor, making you use your entire lunch break on the elevator” rider, the “I’m going to pass noxious wind and you’ll never guess which of us it is” rider…and the list goes on.

Today I got on and practiced my mantra, while smiling (grimacing) at my fellow riders, and pressed floor 19. The elevator stopped at floor 2 while everyone sighed with undisguised angst as a young, able-bodied passenger got off (note: next time at least fake a limp). It proceeded to stop on every other floor while my blood pressure creeped up faster than the elevator ever would. Finally, when it stopped at 18 and I only had one more floor to go, I sighed in relief. Until it started to plummet down.

“WTF! NOOO!” I shouted to the bare walls. It stopped on 15. Two men walked in. “Up or down!” I barked rabidly. “Down,” they said. I exited the elevator huffing, puffing and swearing while one of the men said “looks like it’s not her day.” ARGHHH.

On floor 15 I waited 10 minutes for another "up" elevator to no avail. Finally I decided to go back down and start all over. The elevator stopped on floor 6. The doors remained closed. I began to sweat. And still no movement. Panic disorder activated, I was just about to push the emergency button and scream that I was two seconds away from a shit storm, when it began to descend. Back on floor 1, I realized it had now been 20 minutes since I'd arrived to work, and was still not in my office. The cycle repeated itself as the elevator once again stopped on floor 2 to let a lazy passenger out. This time I got off at number 20, the main lobby of my office, and walked down to 19.

I ask, readers, would you be able to maintain calm after this palaver? As I sat down, shaking and twitching, my coworkers started to complain about the fact that the elevator has now been programmed to not stop on my floor due to recent thefts. So now everyone has to go to the main reception area one floor up. Feeling an explosion brewing at the inhumanity of not having received any warning of this from "the man," I was just about to call the CEO (in other words, stew silently) when there in my inbox I saw a vague message about security updates. Sure enough, there was the info I'd chosen to ignore the day before. Guess this time, it was my bad.

Smells Like Halloween Spirit

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. Living in the Northeast United States, one has the privilege of witnessing the amazing transformation of the leaves. (Or, leaf peeping as my mother recently informed me it was called. Snort.) Vegetable death and decay mingle with smoke from chimneys to create that comforting autumn smell. And we can’t forget Halloween—my favorite of all holidays. I love dressing up as something evil (witch, vampire, devil) to truly get in touch with my inner demon.

My obsession with ghosts and ghouls probably came about at a young age, when my father introduced my brother and me to Stephen King. King was his favorite author, and when we stayed at his house on weekends, he’d read a bit of it to us before bed. He also took us to see scary films, much to our young delight (and subsequent neuroses)—Pet Sematary, Serpent and the Rainbow, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Candy Man. You name it, we saw it. Of course, while this might have been good to brag to our friends about, as we were the only kids under age 10 seeing this stuff, I still sleep with a nightlight at age 35 and check behind my shower curtain to make sure “Zelda” isn’t lurking.

Every year, when pumpkins blaze from neighbors’ windows and witches and skeletons hang from people’s front doors, I’m reminded of a funny ghost story. It was 1998. I was living abroad in Glasgow, Scotland. My brother came to visit me, and I took him around the city and surrounding areas. One day, we decided to hit Edinburgh, which was a short bus ride away. As we walked around the cobblestone streets, we debated whether or not we should pay the few pounds to go inside the castle. As we discussed the pros and cons,  fate stepped in with a gust of eerie wind, carrying with it a flyer that settled at our feet.

The flyer said Auld Reekie Tours, and boasted a guided visit of creepy underground chambers that used to be part of the old underground city along the Royal Mile...a witches' vault, a torture chamber, and plenty of paranormal activity. What could be more exciting? Then we saw a testimonial on the flyer: “I saw a ghost. I REALLY saw a ghost!” We were sold.

So…down we went, after paying more than we would have to see the castle. A hunchbacked (real or fake?) man in a cape led us and the other gullible tourists into what appeared to be someone’s basement. He pointed out a room that used to be a witches' circle. It was a shadowy corner that we could barely see. Several more empty basement rooms followed. And though it was all dank and dark…I didn’t see any ghosts. In fact, I didn’t see ANYTHING. All the while, “hunchy” told cheesy ghost stories that wouldn’t scare a child, much less a professional horror buff like myself.

At one point the guide turned out his flashlight, making the easily-pleased crowd squeal with delight. Next thing I know, I felt something pelt me. As the lights flickered back on, we saw that he had merely thrown rubber spiders at us. My brother and I covered our mouths to keep from laughing.

As we left the tour, heads hanging, we realized we’d been duped. Not only did we NOT "see a ghost," but not even the torture chamber—i.e., a room with papier mache people being tortured in weird devices—could cheer us up. To "quoth" a famous raven....Nevermore!

Here’s to hoping your Halloween, readers, is truly frightful! And feel free to tell your own ghost story in the comments box.