Matt: Dum de-dum,de-dum. Back when I worked in an office, this was the week where absolutelynothing got done. So let's write an article where nothing of substance getsdiscussed. 'Tis the season.
Heidi: Boy, that'll be a challenge.It's hard for me to be frivolous. Which reminds me of a cruise once . . .
Matt: . . . on a balmy tropical sea . . .
Heidi: . . .when this scrawny guy dressed in drag began kissing Captain Hottie on theMandalay. I mean nothing pornographic, just a drunk guy on aWindjammer cruise doing what you're supposed to be doing on those ships: actinsane. I seem to recall the guy was eventually carried back to his cabin. Ialso remember feeling a little jealous. That captain was a cutiepie!
Matt: You and your schoolgirl crushes. Maybe someday a cruiseline will hire a female captain and I can send some turnabout yourway.
Heidi: Yeah, but you men can ogle at all those passengersslinking around in skimpy bikinis. I remember on a Carnival ship once, thischick with huge gazambas was wearing a patriotic red, white and blue thingno bigger than a couple of postage stamps. X-rated, I tell you. Even I wasstaring.
Matt: But for every one of those there's somebody elsewearing the same thing who really shouldn't be. Turns your libido intobinary code: on, off, on, off, on, off.
Heidi: Right, like the oldman on Royal Caribbean's Grandeur or the Seas in the Med a few yearsback. Now he was straight from central casting. I'm watching thismen's "sexy legs" contest on the pool deck. They're halfway into the thingwhen this little old guy in purple shorts limps up to the line. No kidding,one leg was shorter than the other and he of course wanted to join the game.He insisted and paraded around with the others. Bizarroooooo. Where do thesepeople come from? The land of cruise loonies?
Matt: But then thereare the sweet ones, like the British guy I saw on P&O's Oriana. Itwas a passenger talent show and he was singing "Love Me Tender," dressed inblack jeans, black cowboy shirt and boots, and a bolo tie. Turns out he'dmet an American girl thirty years before on P&O's Canberra, moved toArizona to marry her, and now they were back for their anniversary. It wastouching.
Heidi: From touching to touched: At the talent show on theNorwegian Sun in Alaska back in the late '90s, this lady who had tobe in her 80s dressed up in a short baby-doll dress and impersonated ShirleyTemple singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop." And yes, she was licking a giantlollipop. Sometimes I still get nightmares.
Matt: Somewhere outthere is a fetishist getting all hot and bothered by thatimage.
Heidi: Pleeasssseeee, this is a family website. Ithink.
Matt: Let's segue from the disturbing to the merelyinexplicable: Two days ago I'm walking through the casino on NCL's newNorwegian Pearl and I see this young woman run to a slot machine andsay, "Oh, I love this game!" She didn't mean slots in general. Shemeant that particular machine -- "Kung Fu Lady" or whatever. Are they notall exactly the same? Insert coin, pull handle, lose money.
Heidi:You're such a simpleton. It's like saying all drums are the same: You beaton them and they make noise. Which reminds me of the crew talent shows onHolland America's Statendam a few weeks back. I hate to sound overlycritical, but some of the acts were just awful. Sure, they weren'tprofessional, but doesn't everyone have an inner Simon Cowell that knowsgood from bad? Still, the crowd seemed to enjoy the whole thing. Gofigure.
Matt: Obviously they didn't do the number I saw at an HALcrew show once: "My Way" played by 14 Indonesian crewmembers on tuned bamboorattles. Amazing!
Heidi: Riiiiiiiiight, bamboo rattles. Wouldn'tknow one of those if it whacked me on the head. Which reminds me of atablemate on one cruise who actually nodded off at dinner. His head wasbobbing just an inch from his plate. The poor guy really embarrassedhimself. Too many Manhattans, I guess.
Matt: Or maybe (to quote froma Precambrian-era Frommer's cruise guide, long before we took itover) it was the fault of "black velvet nights that slide smoothly off thememory . . . diamond days, bright and brilliant andeverlasting."
Heidi: Sounds like a commercial for Elizabeth Taylor'snewest perfume. Thank god we took over.
Matt: No purple prose here.Just, y'know, pith.
Heidi: Pith?
Matt: Pith.
HappyNew Year!
Talk with fellow Frommer's cruisers on our Cruise Message Boards.