Have you ever dreamed of the perfect vacation? Have you thought about it for years and years, and then made the decision that you were going to make it happen? Well, the wife and I did just that: we planned for, saved for, and made happen our dream vacation. We went on a cruise to the Bahamas.
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Yippee-ki-yeah!
First off, I have to give a big shout-out to the wife. She is the one who squirreled away money (tax refunds, Christmas bonuses, a little extra cash-flow every month, etc) to make our dream become a reality. I want it to be known that the time I had with my wife and two sons was much more enjoyable than I am about to make it appear. In fact, given the opportunity, I would remain with my wife and sons on that stinking cruise ship with the stupid frat boys until the day I die (if given the choice), and I would be one of the happiest dudes alive… until I died on the cruise ship, and then I would be one of the happiest dudes… uh… dead, I guess.
The wife and I planned on going on a cruise for our 15th anniversary. It was going to be a really special treat, and we had been looking forward to it for years. The problems that led to us not being able to make that happen were like the perfect storm of CRAP that transpired in the few years leading up to the 15th year of our ultimate declaration of love. We had started a little business together, built it up to a level of creating a decent profit, and had recently sold that business to a clueless chick who ended up declaring bankruptcy and screwing us out of a lot of money. At that point, we should have declared bankruptcy ourselves, but decided to take the higher road and repay all of the debt we owed. Some “sage” at some point in time made me believe that repaying your debts will benefit you in the long run. Yeah… I’m still waiting to reap the benefits of that stupid little piece of advice. Shortly after being screwed in the candy business, the economy took a major tank; and shortly after that, reductions in pay (as opposed to raises) were the trend of the day. Some of the employers had the balls to call it what it was (a reduction in pay), while others called it a “pay restructuring” or a “new compensation plan” and made you read Who Moved My Cheese.
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Needless to say, the 15th anniversary cruise was suddenly a pipe-dream.
Shortly before the 15th anniversary, we had started to save for the dream. When we realized that it wasn’t going to happen at the 15-year mark, we decided to prolong it a couple of years and make it a full-family-free-for-all. In other words, we were going to take our sons. Much less romantic, absolutely NO hanky-panky, more full of farts and body odor, and multitudes of inappropriate comments at the absolutely most inappropriate times.
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Sounded like a relatively fair trade to me. Don’t get me wrong… I likes me that there hanky-panky… but I likes me thems there farts too…
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… theys makes me giggle… and giggling is good for the soul 🙂
So, we have it all planned to go on a cruise to the Bahamas. We decide on Royal Caribbean, and we were ready to set sail on the Majesty of the Sea.
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Sounds pretty cool, right? Sure does. Of course, we have to get on the ship in Miami, and we live hundreds and hundreds of miles from Miami. So, we have to fly.
I hate flying!
I hate the fear of having no control of anything while soaring at 30,000 feet above the earth (or, as I like to think of it, about a 40 second nightmarish fall to a certain, messy, instant death). My palms get clammy and my stomach doesn’t feel too swell just thinking about it. I also hate getting to the point of being able to get on the stinking plane, You know, the whole TSA nightmare.
“But they are just keeping us safe!” says the nincompoop who likes the TSA.
“Flying is a privilege, not a right,” says the government advocate.
I’m gonna call BS on both of those statements. They are not keeping us safe by patting down small children and old ladies. They are not keeping us safe by subjecting us to radiation. They are not keeping us safe by making me put all of the liquids I need in 3 oz bottles and limiting them to a 1 quart bag. This is all retarded. This is all “shock and awe” in an attempt to make us think that they are really keeping us safe… and, in the meantime, they are stepping all over our civil liberties. But it’s all in the name of “stopping terrorism,” so the vast majority of us just let it slide. And when there are armed National Guard in front of Walmart making sure we aren’t trying to bomb super centers, that will be all right too. And when they start reading our mail and listening in on our phone conversations in the name of national security, we’ll be fine with that as well. And when the civil unrest finally starts, those involved in the unrest will be hauled off to “camps” to protect the rest of the population from the “extremists.”
Rant much? Why yes, thank you, I do. Anywho, I hate the TSA. They are just people doing a job, right? Yeah, so are the buttmunchs who send you unsolicited spam, and the jerkwads who call you at 7:30 on a Saturday morning trying to get you to buy their auto insurance. Personally, I’d rather flip burgers at McDonald’s than help implement the military state and invade citizens’ civil liberties… but hey, that’s just me.
So, we get to the airport in Denver, check our bags, take off half of our clothes, get radiated, and make it through security. We get on the plane, and we fly to Miami. Well, we fly to over Miami, and then we circle over Miami for like an hour because of some storms. Then we fly to Ft. Lauderdale because we’re low on fuel. Then we sit in the plane on the tarmac for like an hour getting refueled and waiting for the okay to fly back to Miami. Then we fly back to Miami and land. My least favorite parts of flying, other than the turbulence and the extreme heights and the small seats in “business class” and the fat-assed flight attendants who bump my shoulder every time they walk down the narrow aisle (I thought flight attendants had to be petite… now they’re all fat or dudes and most definitely like banging into passengers) and the narrow aisles and the small restrooms and the long lines to the small restrooms and trying to pee in turbulence… the parts I hate the most are taking off and landing. Taking off and landing are where most accidents occur. Well, on the trip to Miami, what was supposed to be a 4-hour non-stop flight from DIA to MIA turned into an almost 7-hour ordeal with two take-offs and two landings. We really got some bang for our buck on that stupid flight. So, instead of having an afternoon to check out Miami, we went straight to the hotel, grabbed some supper, and got ready for bed.
The next morning, after feasting on the hotel’s all you can eat breakfast buffet (just the beginning of us gorging ourselves), we take a cab out to the port. Going through the boarding process is quite a bit less intimidating than the airport security, but still kind of sucks. Finally, we get on the boat and are ready to really start enjoying our vacation… when I notice them.
Dudes… young dudes… rich-looking young dudes… everywhere. Preppy guys looking like their ready to get their drink on. What the…?!? And they all have Greek letters on their shirts. Frat boys… seriously… everywhere! Most of them appear to be ΣAE (Sigma Alpha Epsilon), although there are some something-with-a-Deltas there, and a something-Kappa-something or two as well. EVERYWHERE!!! It’s nothing personal against young gentlemen in fraternities, God love ’em. I just have a very strong aversion to guys who are almost guaranteed success because they have rich daddies and like looking down on those not in their group. I had to deal with frat boys when I went to college, and I didn’t much care for them then… and now, almost 20 years later, my dream vacation is in jeopardy of being tainted by an extremely large ship FULL of them…
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… and not a sorority girl in sight 🙁 It was shaping up to be a long week.
… to be continued