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As noted in this thread, my boyfriend and I recently returned from a cruise. The cruise got off on a bad foot when the ship was delayed from returning to port by fog. The people waiting to go on the cruise were getting more pissed off by the hour, and it's a guarantee that the people stuck on the ship weren't a pleasant bunch to be around. I kept thinking of all the flights being missed -- more by the hour -- and cringing.
With that as our starting point, I knew that I would be witness to some incredible bouts of idiocy and I was not at all disappointed. In fact, I saw so many that I started keeping a log of them.
Unsurprisingly, after that rough start, the acts of SC-ness began immediately. Most of us weren't allowed to even board the ship until about 10 that night, almost 12 hours late. The mandatory safety briefing was to be held at 11, and with that in mind...
1. -- Most people went straight to the dining room after finally being allowed on the ship, and with the safety briefing in an hour, most of us were wolfing down our food. A newlywed bride had a meltdown when the signal to go up to the safety briefing went off, and shrieked at a waiter that he had ruined her honeymoon -- because she hadn't had time to finish her dinner.
2. -- At the safety briefing, the lot of us stood around waiting, and waiting, and waiting... and waiting... until the people who were holding up the process were summoned by their individual cabin numbers. And then we waited some more... until three snobby girls strolled by with their noses in the air and drinks in their hands, taking their place and looking around with that unmistakable sense of entitlement that seemed to convey that we should have all been honored to wait for them.
3. -- One night at dinner we made the mistake of agreeing to eat with strangers. You can either have your own table for your party or you can agree to sit at a big table with people you don't know. I'm told this is a good way to meet new people and make friends, but in this instance we only managed to meet another gay couple, one half of whom was boring and the other half of whom was creepy. I later learned they were interchangeable, because my boyfriend had thought the creepy one was boring and the boring one was creepy. The one I thought was boring droned on at length about his job as a cartographer for the government and about ruining a pot of chili by adding too much pepper. At intervals he would take a pill and mention some obscure health problem, and all I could hear in my mind was Alice from Alice in Wonderland commenting on Hamish's fascinating blockage.
Then the creepy one chimed in and mentioned that his partner liked the A&E show Hoarders, then said his partner was a hoarder and liked to go into the rooms where his hoard was stored and roll around in the stuff.
"You like that show because you can relate," he said. "You like to go roll around in your stuff, don't you?"
My boyfriend and I looked at each other not only because of the strange turn the conversation had taken but because of the tone he was using. I honestly expected him to lean across the table at any moment and hiss through bared teeth that he would like to see what my insides looked like on the outside. Very unsettling.
We would see them from time to time for the rest of the cruise and whenever we saw them we'd immediately turn and walk the other way.
4. -- Speaking of strange gay men, we ran into another one -- an extremely gay young man who we dubbed "Sneering Nelly" because whenever he saw my boyfriend he would turn up his nose with an audible sniff and flounce away. He apparently found me attractive, though, because atop the Mayan pyramid in Belize he made a show of checking out my ass in front of all the assembled tourists. We would see Sneering Nelly and his entire insufferable family frequently throughout the cruise.
5. -- Speaking of Belize, while we were riding the tour bus en route to the ruins, a couple up at the front asked the tour guide, "What do you people do for work here? You all look so poor!"
6. -- On the way back from the ruins, this same couple asked if there were any Belizean celebrities or anyone famous who had moved there to live. When one was named they looked at each other, shocked, and said, loudly, "[Name]?! That's not a celebrity, that's a pedophile! Keep your children away!"
7. -- One night part of the dining room was closed off for a special children's dinner. This was not at all acceptable to all the people who wanted to -- who just had to -- either eat in that part of the dining room or pass through it. Included among these people were two drunk young men, one of whom was wearing a velvet sombrero and both of whom were assholes, who climbed over the barrier and came back with a plate heavy-laden with cake -- and who then proceeded to chew out a waiter who told them those cakes were for the children's dinner.
8. -- On our excursion in Honduras, two dippy women had a conversation easily loud enough for everyone nearby to hear about what to tip the driver and the tour guide. One woman wanted to tip $2 apiece. The other woman would have none of it and said, "That's too much money! It's a Third World country!" Then, when were leaving to go get back on the ship, they tipped the driver and the tour guide one dollar apiece and chirped, "Here you go! One dollar each!"
9. -- The ship heaved considerably, and one night as we were all filing down a staircase to watch a comedy show in one of the lounges, a woman near us said to her companion, "If I fall down these stairs I'll sue and be set for life!"
And such and so forth. I was reminded of exactly why I hate working with tourists so much.
With that as our starting point, I knew that I would be witness to some incredible bouts of idiocy and I was not at all disappointed. In fact, I saw so many that I started keeping a log of them.
Unsurprisingly, after that rough start, the acts of SC-ness began immediately. Most of us weren't allowed to even board the ship until about 10 that night, almost 12 hours late. The mandatory safety briefing was to be held at 11, and with that in mind...
1. -- Most people went straight to the dining room after finally being allowed on the ship, and with the safety briefing in an hour, most of us were wolfing down our food. A newlywed bride had a meltdown when the signal to go up to the safety briefing went off, and shrieked at a waiter that he had ruined her honeymoon -- because she hadn't had time to finish her dinner.
2. -- At the safety briefing, the lot of us stood around waiting, and waiting, and waiting... and waiting... until the people who were holding up the process were summoned by their individual cabin numbers. And then we waited some more... until three snobby girls strolled by with their noses in the air and drinks in their hands, taking their place and looking around with that unmistakable sense of entitlement that seemed to convey that we should have all been honored to wait for them.
3. -- One night at dinner we made the mistake of agreeing to eat with strangers. You can either have your own table for your party or you can agree to sit at a big table with people you don't know. I'm told this is a good way to meet new people and make friends, but in this instance we only managed to meet another gay couple, one half of whom was boring and the other half of whom was creepy. I later learned they were interchangeable, because my boyfriend had thought the creepy one was boring and the boring one was creepy. The one I thought was boring droned on at length about his job as a cartographer for the government and about ruining a pot of chili by adding too much pepper. At intervals he would take a pill and mention some obscure health problem, and all I could hear in my mind was Alice from Alice in Wonderland commenting on Hamish's fascinating blockage.
Then the creepy one chimed in and mentioned that his partner liked the A&E show Hoarders, then said his partner was a hoarder and liked to go into the rooms where his hoard was stored and roll around in the stuff.
"You like that show because you can relate," he said. "You like to go roll around in your stuff, don't you?"
My boyfriend and I looked at each other not only because of the strange turn the conversation had taken but because of the tone he was using. I honestly expected him to lean across the table at any moment and hiss through bared teeth that he would like to see what my insides looked like on the outside. Very unsettling.
We would see them from time to time for the rest of the cruise and whenever we saw them we'd immediately turn and walk the other way.
4. -- Speaking of strange gay men, we ran into another one -- an extremely gay young man who we dubbed "Sneering Nelly" because whenever he saw my boyfriend he would turn up his nose with an audible sniff and flounce away. He apparently found me attractive, though, because atop the Mayan pyramid in Belize he made a show of checking out my ass in front of all the assembled tourists. We would see Sneering Nelly and his entire insufferable family frequently throughout the cruise.
5. -- Speaking of Belize, while we were riding the tour bus en route to the ruins, a couple up at the front asked the tour guide, "What do you people do for work here? You all look so poor!"
6. -- On the way back from the ruins, this same couple asked if there were any Belizean celebrities or anyone famous who had moved there to live. When one was named they looked at each other, shocked, and said, loudly, "[Name]?! That's not a celebrity, that's a pedophile! Keep your children away!"
7. -- One night part of the dining room was closed off for a special children's dinner. This was not at all acceptable to all the people who wanted to -- who just had to -- either eat in that part of the dining room or pass through it. Included among these people were two drunk young men, one of whom was wearing a velvet sombrero and both of whom were assholes, who climbed over the barrier and came back with a plate heavy-laden with cake -- and who then proceeded to chew out a waiter who told them those cakes were for the children's dinner.
8. -- On our excursion in Honduras, two dippy women had a conversation easily loud enough for everyone nearby to hear about what to tip the driver and the tour guide. One woman wanted to tip $2 apiece. The other woman would have none of it and said, "That's too much money! It's a Third World country!" Then, when were leaving to go get back on the ship, they tipped the driver and the tour guide one dollar apiece and chirped, "Here you go! One dollar each!"
9. -- The ship heaved considerably, and one night as we were all filing down a staircase to watch a comedy show in one of the lounges, a woman near us said to her companion, "If I fall down these stairs I'll sue and be set for life!"
And such and so forth. I was reminded of exactly why I hate working with tourists so much.
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