Good Morning! I just reread last night’s post and decided against zeroing in on one person. Something funny did happen, but it was only funny because nobody likes this broad. If it had happened to anyone else it would have been awful.
When you put 2000 plus people on a ship, with really nowhere to go, over time you really do get familiar with the whiners (or winers as my sister says). They are the ones I dislike the most. Nothing is done right or good enough for them. And….they are the competitive ones that have to be first and have the best.
We are ALWAYS lining up for something, the dining room to open, the theatre to open, the culinary cooking demos to open, the elevators to come, the front desk for questions and problem solving, the shore excursion desk to change, cancel or buy an excursion, the buffet line to get your lunch, to get on a tender to take you to shore, waiting for your tour number to be called, to get that comfy vibrating reclining chair at the front of the best lounge with the best view out the front of the boat (there are only ten of them and there are over 2000 people wanting one), to talk to techie guy about the internet, sign out a library book, get a computer, to get a latte from coffee guy (the slowest person on the whole ship I might add) ….. well cruising is just one big line up. Without the right frame of mind it could drive you crazy. I have taken this opportunity to practise my patience skills (my halo just went bling bling a little!)
This is how I cope now with it all. Go to the back of whatever line you are in, try to be last at whatever you are waiting for (as our excursion guy always says, “the last bus is the fun bus” and watch the people break their legs trying to be first. There is no dignity in shoving old ladies aside, striding with long purposeful legs to the front, then turn around and yell “Marge! Marge! Up here! MARGE!!! Up here! NOW!!”
We were all lined up for the coffee machine the other morning. I had brought my travel mug. It isn’t a very big one, it holds one of the ship’s mugs worth of coffee, but it keeps it hot. So there we are all lined up. Behind me this large man notices my mug. He states in a loud, I am the boss, voice “No travel mugs. They take too long to fill and it slows down the line.” So I go, “What? Are you kidding?” And he says “No. They slow the line down.” So I say, “Even little ones like mine? Its the same amount of coffee.” I don’t remember what his answer was. So when it was my turn, I set my lid off mug on the counter, grabbed a ship mug, filled it, and quickly poured it into MY mug and moved over to put the lid on and handed the dirty ship mug to a passing waiter. I then stared at the guy who is rolling his eyes and shaking his head. What an ass! I find it really hard to try and not engage in these little skirmishes, or get involved in some way. After a while I just want to purposely thwart them and stand back and watch the results. But I have a little australian voice (LC) sitting on my shoulder telling me I am better than that. I’m not, but I do need to at least try!
Yesterday we had to go to the front desk. This involves walking a looooooong way down a narrow hallway, with stateroom doors on each side. We were behind a little person (there are two on the ship, married, and totally awesome people) He was in his wheelchair, not a very big one but its really fast. He was zinging down the hallway at a hundred miles an hour when a large german man with the hugest stomach I have ever see and a very nasty attitude about everything (we have been on a number of buses with him and he always promptly goes to sleep and snores) stepped out into the hallway without looking first. Oh My God!! The collision was horrendous. That little wheelchair got the dude right in the back of the knees, which made german guy sit down really really fast, and he literally made the little person completely disappear, and the wheelchair just kept steaming down the hallway, now with giant german guy screaming like a girl, arms and legs flailing and no sign of little person. I ran like hell to try to catch them but I just couldn’t. They ended up bursting out of the hallway, across the lobby at the end and smashing into the wall beside the elevators. German guy managed to pull himself up and off, and it was evident immediately that the little guy was okay, but got a horrible tongue lashing, in German, from the german guy. Fortunately, german guy’s legs and knees took the brunt of it and the little guy and his chair ended up okay.
All right I am stopping here. Its pretty sad when wheelchair mishaps are the highlight of your day. There is just something wrong with that and I didn’t even tell you the other story, the one I WAS going to write about. Jeez!! It is now six in the morning and we will be pulling into St. Johns at noon. Yay!!! Canada!!!! TTYL
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