DAY 20 &21 GET ME OUTTA HERE!

Another stellar bloody bleeding mind numbing day at sea.  Something needs to happen to shake my brain awake.

As you know I have a habit of taking an instant dislike to people...it saves time.  And I have to admit that on this trip my habit is being tested.  But, after what I watched yesterday my habit had a wee boost.

I was sitting on a couch at the bottom of the Atrium.  There was an announcement that there was going to be a fashion show, using our very own passengers as the models.  Hmmm....better than nothing and these people take themselves so seriously..so I decided to stay and watch, it might be interesting.

Really, I wasn’t going to write about this because, quite frankly, it would just be too difficult to find the right words to convey exactly what I saw.  And I can’t just be blindly “nice” about the people involved.  I will qualify this post by telling you that I spent some time debating about writing about this because I do feel a bit mean and judgy.   But this might be a nice distraction for the next while, so here goes.

To start with, these lovely Brits have no shame or inhibitions, thus the getting naked up on the top deck.  You would think that the majority of the women who volunteered would sort of come from the top echelon, somewhat shapely, not too ancient, still able to walk at least...but no, not actually.

Our lovely flamboyant (I am in love with him) cruise director, Neil, MC’ed the affair.  The chosen music was a very thumpy heavy bassed trance music...no effort to match the models, the clothes, the whole event with the right ambience at all.  So,  we all sat with baited breath, the wild thrilling music changing our heartbeats, lights flashing and zinging,  Neil making a shouty excited intro,  pregnant expectant pause, and SWISH..the curtains parts and out comes the first model.

I am not sure what I was expecting at this early stage of the event, but not what came inching through that curtain.  She had to be 80 if she was a day, with a cane, wearing a most hideous t-shirt material (can’t remember what that stuff is called) sagging baggy flesh coloured skirt and cowl necked (cowl neck shirts are on my shovel list)  long sleeved top.  She looked ghastly!  She was of that certain age that someone at home would have had to help her choose her clothes and whoever it was did not do her any favour.  She wobbled her way to the end of the makeshift runway, sweetly took a wee bow and wobbled back.   All the while the wild thumping music, excited howls from Neil, flashing lights....oxymoron at its finest!  Holy Cow!

Neil, in overly excited clappy hand glee announced the next model.  We wait...and wait....and wait.....and suddenly through the curtain leaps a very springy spry wrinkly old lady making exaggerated swoops and dips and flourishes, displaying a crazy patterned halter dress with an extremely full skirt.  It had the most awful pattern like  zigged and zagged lightening bolts in varying shades of orange and brown and red.  Her scrawny breasts were way too tiny and her chest looked like a fork had gouged a pattern downward into the gaping top of the dress.  Holy Crap!  I thought she was going to bolt right off the runway and to top it off every time she spun violently in circles, the dress shot up to show quite revealing ugly knickers.  We definitely found out what old ladies look like down there  (aww come on!  you know you wondered at least once in your life) What the hell!!!  The dress was way too young for someone with that many wrinkles..it looked ridiculous.  And the dress was UGLY.  Where do these people shop anyway.

So on it went, each one getting more more bizarre or incredibly boring.   One old lady came out it a mud colour shapeless skirt, brougy type shoes with a matching sweater.  Absolutely no style at all. It was clear that they didn’t do much editing with the clothes these people chose to model.  

As in all fashion shows there is a grand finale, a final model with a show stopper.  Neil started to giggle and clap and jump up and down and sing song out that “Here it is ladies and gents....the big moment....the one we have been waiting for....here is Helen....wearing the......blah blah blah.”  At this point, when “helen” came through that curtain, I was shocked into deafness.  I didn’t hear another word the man said.   Seriously, I am going to have trouble describing this one so bear with me here...this is exactly what came through the curtain next...and thankfully last.

Helen would have been about 70 years old, her hair was corn braided, every inch of it and hung down to almost her ass....and let me tell you, her ass had a life of its own.  She probably weighed between 300 and 400 pounds and every part of her moved in different directions.  She had massive breasts...absolutely gargantuan and they moved and swung around independently of each other.  Her legs were fat...no other word for it...simply grotesquely fat, she had rolls on her ankles.  

I am not trying to be mean here.  I am hugely fat myself (and my name is Helen)  but the sight of this woman coming out in the dress she had on left me mindlessly speechless.  Honestly I couldn’t believe what she was wearing.  It was a belted, short sleeved, tight fitting top with a completely full gathered fairly short skirt.  The top was horizontally striped dark orange and black, tiny stripes and the bottom was the same material but vertically striped.  And when she walked the whole dress swung in different directions, back and forth and ...well it just made one dizzy watching her.

And those of us with giant stomaches understand the concept that we don’t have a waist.  None.  So if you try to belt that sucker all that happens is the belt rides up to the top of your massive gut or slides down below...not the most becoming sight.  Her belt had ridden right up to under her massive breasts, which of course made that excessive amount of skirt material flare way way out in front of her.  When she turned sideways, I kid you not, she was wider than the six foot wide runway...she flounced around, back and forth, and as she did a low murmur started to circulate around the crowd.  To top this off she was in six inch spikey high heels.  Very very impressive I must say!  When she finally sashayed off the stage, we all just sat there in complete stunned silence, not sure what we had just seen.  But then all the models paraded out in a line and we all started to clap.

But then, get this...Neil then thanked them all, made a nicey nicey little speech then invited us all to the “Wardrobe”,  the clothing shop here on the ship, we could actually purchase these items!  WHAT???  They actually sell this crap on the ship?  Oh MY GOD!!!  I couldn’t believe it!  He did say that Helen’s outfit was her own and not for sale.  Of course, anything bigger than a size 2 doesn’t exist.  This did restore my faith a wee bit in these ladies...it wasn’t their fault.  The clothes they had on were not their responsibility.  

I just re-read this post and frankly I was going to delete it.  This just doesn’t come near to describing what that fashion show was like.  And it seems really really mean....I still am trying to hide the fact that I am actually a very shallow and mean person at heart.  But I simply have absolutely nothing else to write about so I shall leave it...with my apologies.  TTYL

PS:  My apologies to overweight people that may be reading this.  I know the fact that I am fat myself doesn’t make my fat remarks acceptable.  But, as I said, I ain’t a nice person.