Great Vacation Getaway – Day 3

Today dawned bright and clear and full of promise.  And we were headed for the highlight of our trip: the Helicopter Dog Sled Adventure Ride!

But the boat didn’t dock until 2:30, though.  And once we’d read the daily digest, it was clear what we must do: attend the trivia contest!  After all, I needed some measure of redemption following my failure at the stupid Newlywed Game last night, and so far every time I caught the tail end of the trivia games it was clear that I was in a whole different league than these other crew passengers.

It probably helps that I’m not swilling down Bloody Marys at 9 in the morning, and also that about 32% of my brain is dedicated to remembering useless trivia tidbits, like which country is jointly ruled by a Bishop and by France (it’s Andorra, by the way, which I knew).

Angela, wanting me to feel like I’m not totally useless, managed to get me down there well in time to make the trivia contest.  It took us some doing, since the breakfast restaurant was packed (including by a fairly hungover-looking Mr. Grumpy, which made him look grumpier than usual).  But make it we did. 

The instructions were to form teams, so we teamed up with a couple and with a nice lady who shall remain nameless, but who had a cup full of Bloody Mary at 9 in the morning.  We’d seen her yesterday, with the same cup, but full of beer.

There were 20 questions, and a possible of 24 points.  I felt pretty bad at the beginning – after all, I have no idea about Beach Boys album covers or Beatles records – but I came through in the end when they asked for a bonus question about “what animal is catgut made from?”

It’s Sheep, by the way.  I know, strange.  But it’s sheep.

We ended up scoring 16 points, one off of the winning score of 17, so I felt vindicated by the time it was all over.

Once that was over, we wandered into a scavenger hunt, and again found ourselves paired with Mrs. “I like to drink a lot.”  That was a lot of fun, but we ended up also losing that one, mostly because one of the other teams cheated.  How did they cheat in a scavenger hunt?

I don’t want to talk about it, that’s how.

Then it was off to lunch.  Once again, the restaurant was packed, and this time we found ourselves sharing a table with two nice older ladies who asked us very politely if they could sit with us.  I happily agreed, and Angela wasn’t there to stop me.

Now, I don’t want to sound cruel – and I’m not trying to be funny here – but we’re fairly sure that one of the ladies isn’t quite there.  Nice ladies, really good conversationalists, but one of them – not all there. 

They were both very jealous about our upcoming Helicopter Dog Sled Glacier Adventure.

And then, finally, painfully, we were in Juneau.  Hooray!  Helicopter Dog Sled Glacier Adventure here we come!

We de-boated and made our way up the gangplank, eager to be on our way.

At least, I was eager.  Angela, as you may know, hates heights, is always freezing (even in an oven), and gets motion sick sitting on a waterbed.  So her idea of fun is not “let’s get in a helicopter and fly up high and then go on a dogsled on a glacier with the wind whipping around us while in Alaska.”  But it’s the only thing I ever accidentally showed her the price of, and she for sure wasn’t going to miss this after I paid all that money for it, so she had to come.

Advantage:  Kurt!

First, though, we had to get to the helicopter base camp.  Which was more of an adventure than we could ever have imagined.

Finding our group fairly easily, we noticed that there were two fairly obvious groups together: one, a group of somewhat disgruntled out-of-shape people who were angrily waiting.  Two: a calmer, more relaxed group that seemed to be younger and somewhat fitter.

The leader of the disgruntled people was Dr. Butthead.  While we waited for the whole group to arrive from the boat, he decided to pepper the tour lady with helpful questions like:

“We paid for this, didn’t we?  Why aren’t we going?”

And

“Is there going to be a bus?”

And

“What’s wrong with you people that you can’t be more organized?”

Now, to be fair, they were disorganized.  But I don’t know how organized they can be when 2,500 people get off of a ship over a one-hour period and they all ask the same questions to the first person they meet holding a clipboard.  Things like:

“Are you the glacier dogsled group?”

And

“Are you the dogsled glacier group?”

And

“Are you the one-legged pirate performer who rides the unicycle that we’re supposed to meet?”

You might think I’m kidding, but it’s true.  And I have no idea what they’re thinking, because often it’s obvious that the person holding the clipboard that says KAYAKING ADVNETURE is probably not the person who is supposed to meet you for the SNOWMOBILING REPAIR COURSE, so you might not ask them if they’re that person.

Eventually, she says “Okay, everybody follow me!”

So we followed, with Dr. Butthead saying helpful things like “it’s about time” or “why didn’t you get started already?” or “I have another excursion so it’s about time for you to get started!”

She took us and put us on the bus.  But suddenly, I heard from outside “No, sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring you over here.  You’re the dog sledding group so you have to go back and wait for the next bus.”

Wait, what?

I looked around the bus.  I’m not going to say that I was surrounded by pasty people whose idea of exercise was tying their shoes on a windy day.  But we were easily well younger than the rest of this crowd.

“Are we on the right bus?” I asked Angela.

“They took our tickets, didn’t they?” she said. 

“But they turned that guy away,” I said.

“If they want to turn us away, they’ll come get us,” she said.  “Just let them do their job.”

Just then, the lady got on the bus:  “Is anybody on here a dogsledder?”

I sighed.  “I was right,” I said as they de-bussed us.  “We weren’t supposed to be on that bus.”

“Where was that keen sense last night?” Angela asked as we hiked back over to the waiting area.

Finally after a long wait, we were put on another bus.  A bus driven by…

MR. CRAZY!

And that’s exactly what his name was.  Okay, maybe not: it might have been Clowny McClownicus.

But he was, in fact, Mr. Crazy.

First, he was completely befuddled by the tickets. Did he rip them?  Not rip them?  Did we keep part of them?  Did he need to rip them both at the same time, or rip them singly?  To answer this dilemma, he needed to call in to HQ to find out (no, really).

After he’d loaded us all in, he came inside to give us a safety talk and hit his head on the door of the bus, making him woozy.  I thought it also made him less coherent, but unless that lasted for about 4 hours, I think that wasn’t the issue.

Once he’d given us the safety talk, he finally took the driver’s side and got ready to go.  But apparently it’s a safety rule that he needs somebody to wave him out as he backs up, and despite his best efforts nobody would come over to wave him out.

Eventually, tired and ready to go, he just threw it in reverse and hit the gas, and WHUMP!

He hit his wheel chocks.

Chagrined, he climbed out, pulled the out from under his tires, and then the moment he got back in someone appeared to wave him out.

It’s like, seeing wheel chocks on his vehicle, they assumed he wouldn’t be backing up.  Probably because he couldn’t.

After some time we arrived at helicopter base camp.  Angela was handling the whole thing rather well, only breaking one of my knuckles grasping my hand in utter terror at what was to come.

After much running around crazily, they finally found us a safety “instructor.”  And I put in quotes because this is the first thing he said to us:

“Okay, dudes, I’m going to give you the safety talk.  Wow, I’m like, totally disorganized.  Wow.  Just let me have  a second to get my head together, man.  Wow.  Totally.  Okay, I’m like totally ready to do this now.  Just, wow.  Dude.”

I began to have second thoughts myself, and hoped sincerely that the helicopter pilot and mechanic were significantly less half-baked than everyone else I’d met with this company so far.

Once we’d seen the safety demonstration, we put on our gear:  a life jacket and big rubber booties to keep our feet dry.  I was putting mine on when the woman came to help me and did it in about ten seconds.  Then she went to help the woman next to me, who yelled:

“DON’T TOUCH MY TOE IT’S BROKEN!”

Turns out, this limping woman who’s been with us has a broken toe (or three, she doesn’t know).  I really admired her bravery: if it were me, I’d be laying in bed with my foot up, but here she is out here, determined to make the best of her vacation.  Yikes!  She did really good, too, all things considered.

Once this is all done, and we’re suited up, it’s time for the helicopter ride.  Thankfully, this is not one of those vintage 1960s-era ‘copters at a state fair, but rather a modern helicopter piloted by a pretty competent-looking pilot.  I felt reassured the whole time.

Our pilot was a woman, who had 9 years of experience, who was really sensitive to the fact that two of our flyers were completely not excited about flying, and did her best to keep us stable and comfortable the whole flight.  I tell you, in one trip she did more to make me feel better about the half-bakedness of the other employees.

(Side note: I never did see the goats she pointed out, although Angela claimed that she did see them).

Once at the dogsled camp, I had to give Angela an apology.  See, I’d been sweating out my ears all day at how hot I was in my coat.  Up on the glacier, though, it was colder than a mammer-jammer, and I quickly found myself freezing in the wind.  Thankfully, I had my big heavy coat and my Wyoming constitution to make me feel better, so I was okay.

The Californians, though, were not doing okay.  They were not doing okay at all.

Once we’d gotten the basics of dogsled mushing (don’t fall off, basically), we met up with our team and we started. 

Let’s get two things clear right away:  it’s not fast, and the dogs do poop as they run.

But it is a singularly impressive way to travel.  Yeah, it’s not terribly fast – about 7 to 10 miles an hour – but the dogs make it look so easy, over such horrible terrain, that it’s amazing they go anywhere at all!  And they let you ride the back sled and put the brakes on, which is fun.

At our first stop, I saw something on the ground, so I went to grab it (being ecologically conscious).  I saw that it was a dog bootie.  I’d just picked it up when the dogs, who were terribly amped up during their first run of the day, started going again.

While I was standing in front of the back sled.

For a few moments, I was terribly concerned that I was about to be run over by a dogsled.  It kept whacking me in the shins as the musher tried to get the dogs back under control and stopped, and I just continued to stagger backwards and hope that I didn’t fall and get under the treds of the sled.

Angela helped me by laughing.

With nothing bruised but my ego and my shins, soon we were off again, this time with Angela of the Yukon mushing and me sitting.  And I discovered, not for the first time, that sitting is much better than almost anything else.

Once back at dog camp, we were ready to go.  We’d ridden the sled and petted the dogs and were pretty much ready to wind down this great adventure.

Only, the helicopters weren’t back.  So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

While waiting, I sat down on a box because sitting is much better than almost anything else.  And I discovered that the box was very wet, and I now had wet pants.

Sigh.

So we waited some more, and finally the helicopters came over the hill and we were out of there.

This time Angela sat up front and got some great pictures of the flight, for which I was grateful.  This was particularly nice since she isn’t particularly fond of heights, but she was willing to sit up in the glass front and look down and still shoot all kinds of pictures. 

Once back in Juneau, we were ready to head back to the boat.  After all, it’d been a long day, and as exciting as Gatlinburg of the North was, we were pretty much ready to retire. 

Arriving back in our cabin, Angela’s stomach decided to revolt – it was not at all pretty – and so we spent the rest of the night in our cabin resting.

Great Vacation Getaway – Day 2

It didn’t last. 

Sometime during the night, the sea became angry, and much like the Minnow our ship found itself tossed.  By morning, everything in our room had moved around some, and the bottles of Vodka in the fridge were clanking and clattering like there was no tomorrow.

Argh!

Tired, queasy, and somewhat discontented we awoke and headed off to begin our exciting day.  Or at least, a day that we hoped would be exciting.  What would it hold for us?

After some wandering about we ended up in the breakfast nook, a delightful area where they had all sorts of stuff out to eat.  Since it’s a cruise, there is a lot more on offer than you should ever even think about eating, but we dug in nonetheless.  We didn’t have quite the luck that we’d experienced earlier in the day, and ended up eating away from the window, but it was a good breakfast anyways.

Just as we finished, Angela poked me.  “Hey, look who it is!”

Sure enough, here came Mr. Grumpy, his miserable kindred trailing along behind him, like Snow White leading the Seven Dwarves to the gallows.  They were too far away to hear (thankfully), but the whole lot of them looked decidedly unhappy to be going about whatever they were doing.

“It’s like Where’s Waldo,” I said.  “Only a lot more unhappier.”

For the rest of the day we made that our game: Spot the Grump.

After breakfast the ship was pitching and heaving, so in order to kill time we indulged ourselves in the fine shipboard sport, Shuffleboard.  And thanks to the crashing and tossing of the ship, Angela just barely eked out a victory of 25-0.  I would have scored more, but just when I had all my discs in scoring position a big wave swept them off, plus dropped a crab on my head that pinched me.

Once that was out of the way, it was time for us to go play Bingo.  Like a dutiful husband, I bought the “couples fun” package that included 7 scratch-off lottery tickets, 9 cards, and a T-shirt. 

Angela and I each opened one of the lottery tickets waiting for Bingo to start.

“I won a dollar!” she said happily.

“I got a rock.”

“I won another dollar!”

“I got another rock,” I said.

“Wow!  I won five bucks!”

“Nothing but lemons in mine,” I said.

“I won another buck!” She said.  “That’s eight bucks!”

“I won nothing,” I said.  “Plus this card is making fun of me.”

Eight dollars richer, we began Bingo.  How did we do?  Well, when it was over, we were still only up $8.

“What do you want to do now?” she asked once we’d cashed out her winnings from the shipboard casino.

“I saw a game show,” I said.  “It’s Let’s Make a Deal.  Why don’t we go check it out?”

Up we ran, to participate in this game.  Only it’s not really like you imagine it.  It’s totally different.  It’s really more of a scavenger hunt, where we had to make teams and then bring in items to score points.  We were on Team 5, and quickly I’d forged an alliance with two other couples who looked like they’d be useful in the upcoming battle.

Let me say: one of the dudes, not so much.  He was about as useful as an anchor.  His wife, though, was another story.  She was in it to win it!  Thanks to our quick thinking and fast feet, we managed to come in second.

What did we win, you ask?  Five signatures on our “activity card.”  Until that exact moment, none of us even knew such a thing existed.

“Let’s go bowling,” I said.  “On those super-special hydro-lanes that they have here.  They resist the pitch and swell of the ship!  It’ll be great!”

When we arrived at the bowling lanes, madness reigned.  There were four lanes, see, all of which were full.  Two of them had the biggest, loudest, shriekingest family every, about 9 children and two very frazzled-looking parents.  Milling around in front of the thing were this group of people, and the guy in charge was running around.

His relief arrived at the same time as us and started trying to sort it out.

“Who’s next?” she asked.

“Some people,” he said.  “They’re somewhere.”

“What are their names?” she asked.

“I don’t know the names,” he said.  “I didn’t ask them.”

This carried on for about five more minutes, like an Abbott and Costello routine done by a particularly dumb person.  Apparently he’d promised the lane, but didn’t know to who.

“These children aren’t with me!” the mother in the crazy lane shrieked.  It was weird – if they weren’t with her, why were they all over her?  It was bizarre.

Finally some order was restored, and we ended up on a list. 

“Wanna play some slots while we wait?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

We each put in a dollar.  I had lost mine in about ten seconds.  Angela, though, was up at $2.45 when I ran out of cash and started ‘helping’ her. 

I had her broke soon thereafter.

We wandered around then, stumbling across a Galaga machine.  “Go for it!” I said as I started a game for her.  She’d blew up during the first wave, and I chuckled.

Ten minutes later, she was still playing on her second life.  D’oh!

“Allen?” the lady called.  “Allen?”

“Honey, we gotta go!” I said.  “Our lane is ready!”

“Go ahead,” she said.  “I have to save the universe from destruction!”

So I went, and rented shoes, and signed a waiver, and whatnot.

“Come on,” I said when I got back over to Galaga.  “You gotta go sign a waiver!”

“Okay,” she gave me the game.  “Just be careful.”

BOOM!  I was dead almost immediately.  Really sad. 

At bowling, I dominated, throwing almost 140.  Not great, but not bad at all, particularly since the pitching and heaving of the ship threw my game off.  Angela didn’t do too bad, either, and if we’d had another few games we’d have been up to our usuals.

Just as we were about to leave, who did we spot?

If you guessed “Mr. Grumpy” give yourself five points.  Ding ding!  He still looked grumpy, too, just for the record.

We had lunch in there, too, by the way, but it was nothing special.

Then it was time for afternoon Bingo.  I think I understand the draw of Bingo: it’s like horse racing without the cruelty to animals, and old people can do it without having to exert any physical effort at all and yet still be competitive.

We found ourselves sitting next to the Aussie ladies we’d been near that morning, and so the five of us chatted and laughed our way through the Bingo games.  Particularly at the little old lady who was the first Bingo.  They had you standing up when you were one number away, and she was the first one to stand up.

“What latter do you need?” the proctor asked.

“I ain’t telling you!” she bawled.

Somebody else stood up after the next letter.

“What letter do you need?” he asked.

“DON’T TELL HIM!” the old lady yelled.  “IT’LL JINX YOU!”

When she finally did get Bingo, she was happy, although I found that her dancing left something to be desired. 

Once again, by the way, Angela won $4 on scratch-off lottery cards.  And one of the Aussie ladies won the biggest jackpot of the day.  I won diddly.  And squat.

For Dinner, we had lots of choices about where to eat, so we of course chose The Summer Palace.  And yes, when you say its name, you have to speak in italics.  Because it’s just that kind of place.  While we were waiting in line, we saw a dude get ejected for wearing shorts.

“Uh oh,” I said.  “I better run and change.”

“Let’s just eat somewhere else,” Angela said.  “This place looks too froo-froo anyways.”

“Naw,” I said.  “I want to eat here.  I want to eat at every comp restaurant on the boat!”

So I ran off.  I rode in the elevator with the dude who got ejected, who complained and moaned and whined all the way up to the 11^th deck about how unfair it was that he couldn’t eat there in shorts.

Then I ran back down to the restaurant to find Angela waiting inside.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“This all looks terrible,” she said.  “I can’t eat any of this.”

“No, see, there’s chicken in there.  Chicken!  You like chicken. Cluck cluck!”

“What would you like?” the waiter asks.

“I guess I’ll take the chicken,” Angela says.

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else,” she says.  “Just the chicken.”

“And for you sir?”

“I’ll take the pork spring rolls, the special of the day, and the bread pudding.  Oh, and a glass of wine.”

After he’s gone, she looks at me.  “Do you even know what the special of the day is?”

“No,” I said.  “That’s what makes it so special.”

“It was crab and salmon cakes.  If I remember, you don’t like crab.”

“Oh,” I said.  “Oh, dear.”

After a long time (and my starter of pork spring rolls, which were tasty), the food finally comes.  I was relieved to see that the special was apparently tasty Salmon, which I began wolfing down.  I had about half of it down when Angela says this:

“What the heck are shrimp doing on my plate?”

I looked up, pieces of salmon running down my chin, to see that she’s received some kind of crud-coated chicken thing on a bed of rice with shrimp and a very strange vegetable.  Having thoroughly reviewed the menu before deciding to take my chances on the special, I knew exactly what she had.

“That’s the Thai Chicken,” I said.  “With coconut shrimp.  You should try some.”

“I don’t want to try some,” she said.  “I didn’t even want to eat here.”

“Just push the shrimp off to the side,” I said.  “I’ll give them a good home.”

“Did you get the Thai Chicken?” the nice old lady at the table next to us asked.  “Because that’s what I ordered, but I got this instead.”

“See!” I said.  “That looks really tasty.  You would have enjoyed that.”

“I ordered the Cod,” the guy with the old lady said.  “This isn’t the cod.” 

He had what looked like a burned-out hockey puck on his place. 

Suddenly the waiter arrived.  “Oh, I am very sorry, there has been a terrible mistake!  I will fix this right away!”

He bustled around and took the old people’s plates, and replaced them with something else.  Then he took Angela’s plate away, promised to bring her food to her, and promptly vanished.

I, however, got to keep my Salmon.  I don’t know if it was because I was half done with it, or that I had smeared it all over my face, or that I stabbed him with the fork, but whatever it was, I got to finish the salmon.

After a very long delay, he returned with the Rosemary Chicken, which to me looked very much like boiled chicken.  But Angela said it was okay.  And then, a few seconds later, with great fanfare he placed a burned-out hockey puck in front of me.

“Your dinner, sir!”

“I already ate dinner,” I said.

“No, that was wrong.  This is what you ordered.”

“Oh,” I said.  “What is it?”

“Crab and salmon cake, sir.”

“Oh,” I said.  “Why is it on mashed potatoes?  Does the chef hate me?”

He just left.  And you know what?  I think the chef did hate me, because that was pretty gross.  On the upside, though, the outer coat of the hockey puck was definitely burned.  So it had that going for it.

As we were eating, Angela nudges me.  “Hey, look,” she says.  “It’s Mr. Grumpy!”

Sure enough, there he is, stumping his grumpy way through the crowd, his family trailing after him.  He’s wearing a red T-Shirt and suspenders and his ball cap and limping along, angrily complaining.  Trailing behind him is his clan, all of them dressed like they’re going to a ball, about 5-6 people in all.  It was the strangest thing.  He must have money, I decided, to be so unhappy and underdressed and yet accompanied by a cast of extras from Cinderella.

Then they got to the stairs, and he began limping up the stairs.  The rest of them went around the stairs and towards the side exit, where the elevators are.

He stopped on the stairs and shook his fist angrily at them.  They mocked him from the ground and left, and he continued on up the stairs alone.

Okay, so not so much money that they want to suck up for an inheritance…

After dinner, I got my dessert, which was pretty good, and which I would have eaten except I had two dinners and a starter plate. 

After dinner, we went to the highlight of our cruise: the Not So Newlywed Game.  Ever since I read about this, I’d been hoping to be on this thing.  And I’d spent the whole dinner grilling Angela on our answers so we’d be as prepared as possible to win: where did we meet?  What’s my biggest flaw?  What was our best vacation?  Are you going to finish that chicken?

I’d also been greasing the skids a little bit to get us picked.  There are these ship hosts, see, who set up games and stuff, and in the Bingo games and the Let’s Make a Deal Scavenger Hunt I’d been buttering them up.  And every time I saw one, I’d pump them for inside information about how to get picked for the Newlywed game.

When the time came, I knew what to do: when they call your anniversary range (like ten to twenty five years) be loud and obnoxious.

It’s the part I was born to play, baby!

Needless to say, nobody is more loud and obnoxious than me, so we got picked, along with a pair of newlyweds and two 35-year married people.  We sat down, and I leaned over to Angela before it began. “Just remember what we talked about!” I hissed.

“Shut up,” she said.  “You owe me.”

I was the first to be sequestered, while Angela and the other wives answered questions.  They got us whatever drink we wanted, so I took the opportunity to get a free beer from the cruise line.  Hoorah!  I might be the only free beer drinker on board!

Well, except the other four husbands.

When they called us back out, we had to answer five questions.  Of the five, I would say that three of them had nothing to do with the stuff Angela and I had talked about, so I was left to guess what to answer.  I got one of those right.

The other two?  Stuff we’d clearly talked about and identified and for which the answer was clear.  So I, of course, totally honked it and got them both wrong. 

You should have seen the look Angela gave me.  “Are you kidding me?” she rolled her eyes.  “That’s the best you can do?”

So then the wives left, and the husbands stayed behind and answered.  Of those five questions, I would say three were ones that we’d discussed.  I knew what answer I should give, and how I should respond.

AND I SCREWED IT UP ANYWAYS!

I mean, really, what is that?  I go all out to get primed up to cheat at this stupid game show, and I screwed it up.  Really?  Idiot!

She came back, and of course answered the two that were guesses easily, and then gave the “correct” prompted answer to the other three, and then got them wrong, and then looked at me like I was the stupidest person on earth.

As a consolation prize, we won two t-shirts and a water bottle.  The big “winner” got a huge bottle of champagne, which is good, because neither of us like champagne. But I think the entire thing was well summed up by Angela:

“I don’t know how you ever got to be a manager, because you fold under pressure.”

“I know,” I said.

“You spent all dinner grilling ME on MY answers, and then you totally screwed up YOURS!”

“I know,” I said.

“How stupid can you be?  You’ve been talking about this for, like, ten days, and then on your big chance, you’re all like ‘duh, I don’t know!’”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said.

“I mean, at breakfast you’re all like ‘best vacation was Italy!  Worst was Egypt!  You don’t have shoes!  I like to eat tuna!’”

“Hey, look, the four seasons!” I said.  “Let’s go listen!”

I dragged her, still mocking me, into the Four Seasons tribute band.  And oh, what a night it was (see what I did there?).  For a tribute band to a group that had their heyday forty years ago, they were surprisingly good.  I was very pleased.  And also surprised at how many of the songs I knew.

Tired, we went to bed after that, and turned in.  The day was a complete success, and a great first day of cruising.  And since the time turned back, we got another hour of sleep in.  Yay!

Well, except for the game show.  How could I honk it that badly?

Great Vacation Getaway - Day 1

Every year I dread May.  It’s because May is home to the Bataan Death March of holidays for me: first there’s Angela’s birthday, then there’s Mother’s Day, and finally, our anniversary.  It’s not that I don’t love this three-week celebration of the Joy of Angela in our lives.  It’s just that I can’t really think of one gift on any regular basis, much less three.

And you’d think that the children might be responsible for Mother’s Day, but you’d think wrong.  If they screw it up, do you know who pays?  That’s right: dad.

But this year is different.  This year is an anniversary divided by 5.  That means that it’s a special year!  Hooray!  And this year, for our big anniversary trip, we booked a cruise to Alaska.  Hooray!

(this gives you some insight into how good I am at presents: I can come up with a good one every five years)

In the run-up to the vacation, I spent my time daydreaming of how wonderful our trip would be, and how awesome it would be to be away from work, and how much I was looking forward to just relaxing and doing whatever I wanted to and not worrying about kids or work or whatever.

Angela spent it fretting.

Finally the big day came.  Grandma and Grandpa came to take care of the kids, we had everything packed (and re-packed and checked and post-repacked and post-repack checked).  After turning around three times to get “one last thing” we were off.  Yee-haw!  One brief drive to Salt Lake City later, followed by a room rented in a tiny hotel near the airport, followed by dinner at Outback, and our “regular life” was left behind.  It was time for: VACATION!

The morning of Vacation Day 1 started pretty good.  We slept in until almost 7:15, which is pretty good if you consider that normally our weekend days start at 5:27 when William comes in and says “Can I get up yet and read some? I can’t sleep any more!”

Awoken and refreshed, I decided to do something that I never, ever do on vacation: I tried to save money.  Lest you think this is normal, you have to understand that I like to vacation like a Turkish Prince.  No extravagance is too far beyond my reach once I am vacationing.  More grapes?  Wine? Bring them on!  Chop, chop!

(Angela, on the other hand, likes to be frugal no matter what she does, like when she wanted to save money visiting the Outer Banks by renting a house in Pennsylvania)

But I’d seen the cost to park at the airport in Salt Lake, and I decided to try one of the “Park-n-Fly” places located around the airport in an attempt to save money.  After much research, I found out what the difference is: $0.25 per day.  That’s it.

Forget that: Turkish Prince, activated!

Once we’d gotten up, we had to decide where to go to breakfast.

“How about McDonald’s?” I asked.  “I saw one on the way in.”

“Sounds good,” Angela said.  “Let’s do it.”

So we packed up the car and headed down to the main drag of restaurants near the airport.  Now, you probably believe that no matter where you go, there’s a McDonald’s, right?  Especially if there’s a Burger King, Arby’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and every other fast food restaurant imaginable nearby.

You’d be wrong.

So we started Day 1 eating breakfast at Burger King.  And I guess it wasn’t too bad, all things considered, but it was like Burger King always is: not too good, either.

Oh, well.  I was still on vacation.  Excelsior!

Next we forged ahead to the airport, determined to salvage our vacation morning as best we could.  I’d spent considerable time checking in online, so I was confident that we’d be in and out of the airport line and through security toot-suite.

Yeah, not so much.  If Delta ever asks you to “check in” online, promising that you’ll “save time”, just ignore it.  I had to do exactly the same thing at the kiosk in the airport that I always did, and it took exactly as much time.  But no matter.  Soon our bags were checked, we were through security, and we’d reached our gate.  The vacation was about to commence!

The first problem I noticed was that our flight, in Gate C11, left at 11:15.  The flight to Las Vegas at gate C9 left at 11:18.

“That’s gonna be an issue,” I said to Angela as we surveyed the giant throng of dead-eyed gamblers waiting to go squander time and money in Vegas.  “That’s gonna be a big issue.”

You know what was an even bigger issue?  That our plane was late.  So at about 10:30, they started trying to de-plane our flight while loading up the Las Vegas flight.  Needless to say, despite several announcements about “Please make a path” the whole thing looked like cows trying to go into a feedlot processing plant.

Only stupider.

Somehow, they got Vegas loaded and our plan emptied, and then cleaned, and then they finally called for boarding for our 11:15 flight at 11:10.  Up first: a big dude in a hoverchair.  I mean, a big dude.  And just so you know, hoverchairs don’t hover.  Oh, they move slow, but they for sure don’t hover.  After they’d gotten him loaded, and the other two wheelchairs loaded, and they guy with the IV attached to him (no kidding!), it was general boarding, and so on and so forth, until finally the whole plane was loaded up.

At 11:45.

Then the pilot begins to taxi around and around and around.  Just at the moment we began to wonder if he was planning on driving to Seattle, he stopped, and said “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the delay, but the towers in Las Vegas weren’t communicating with each other, so we came in a little bit late.  We’re going to take off in a few minutes, and we’ll try to make up some time in the air.”

Then he sat there for about fifteen minutes, and then he finally took off, at about 12:15.  Or, if you’re keeping track, an hour later than we were supposed to.  To make matters worse, Angela didn’t feel too swell, so she was pretty much ready for this whole flight thing to be over, and we hadn’t eaten any lunch, so I felt like punching somebody.

Now here’s the weird part: we landed at 12:35 Seattle time, about ten minutes late.  How does that work?  If you take off an hour late, you should land about an hour late, right?  Do they normally fly a lot slower?  Take a longer route?  Land at a different airport?

If you can always do it in that time, why don’t you do it in that time? 

“Okay,” I said to a slightly greenish Angela, “Now we’re on vacation.  Woo!”

“I need water,” she said.

“Great!  We’re headed for a boat!”

I dragged her through the airport towards baggage claim, eager to be on my vacation for real.  While we waited for our bags, I saw a lady walking around with a clipboard.

“Over here!” I yelled.

“Are you with Holland Cruise Lines?” she asked.

“I sure am!” I said.  “Where’s the bus?  Where’s the cruise? Where’s my My Tai?”

“Honey,” Angela said.  “That’s-“

“Hush!  I’m trying to get us on the boat!” I said.  “Where’s my free hat?  Is the pool open yet?”

“Sir-“ The lady said.

“Kurt-“ Angela said.

“Can I get early check-in?  Is my room ready?”  I jabbed my papers at the woman while kicking Angela in the shin.  “Can I reserve the captain’s table yet?  Are there any whales to see?  Are the bilges full?”

“HEY!” Angela yelled.  “We’re not with Holland, doofus.  We’re with Norwegian.”

I looked from one to the other, crushed and hurt and disappointed.  “Do you know where Norwegian is?” I asked.

“Over there,” the lady seemed relieved not to have to deal with me any more.

“Great,” I asked.  “Do you know if their pool is open?  What about-“

“Come on,” Angela dragged me away now.  I did notice that she looked better, though.  It’s like being mad at me gave her strength, like the Incredible Hulk.

Soon enough, we’d signed up and turned our luggage over to the cruise people and we were waiting for our bus, Bus A, to come and take us away.  And that’s when we saw…him.

The grim specter of unhappiness.

In form, he looks a lot like a 65-year-old man who has had more than his fair share of hamburgers and beer.  He slumps over, as if defeated by life, and his brows are furrowed in a perpetual scowl of misunderstanding and suspicion.  He wears his baseball hat high atop his head, like a trucker from the seventies, and for some reason has suspenders on over his T-Shirt, perhaps to keep his mighty belly from pushing his pants floorwards.

Training him is a group of family that doubtless languishes in perpetual misery: a long-suffering (and perhaps not-all-there) wife, some children, and some unhappy-looking grandchildren with metallic bits and bobs punched through their facial orifices.

We were just finishing with the nice lady at the transfer desk when He arrived.

“WHERE’S MY BUS?” he bellowed.  Yes, he speaks in all caps.

“I’m sorry, sir, which bus where you on?”

“I WAS ON A BUS!” he bellowed again.  “BUT IT NEVER CAME!  WHERE IS IT?”

“Which bus was it, sir?”

“THIS ONE!” he waved a ticket back and forth.  I saw it was green.

“Oh, please, let him be on another cruise line,” Angela said.  “Please, God, please!”

“That was bus C, sir. If you’ll give that to me, I’ll give you a transfer for A, because Bus C is already gone.”

“HOW’D I MISS IT?  WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?”

And that line of complaint went on and on and on, but we left it behind.

“He’s going on our boat!” Angela cried.  “I hope he’s not in our group!  I hope we never see him again!”

“How could we see him?” I asked.  “The boat’s got like three or four thousand people on it.  We don’t have to see his unhappy face ever again unless we want to.”

She just sighed, and shook her head, and looked doubtful.

The rest of the wait was uneventful.  We did meet a nice couple who were also coming in from Salt Lake, and we chatted with them about what to expect, and every once in a while Mr. Grump would grump, but eventually the nice lady with the sign arrived and announced that Bus A was departing.

After a brief drive (narrated by the bus driver, and which seemed full of anecdotes about homeless people) we were at the pier.  Our boat awaited!  Ah, what joy!  What rapture!  What…

A line of people waiting to check in.  Oy, vey.  After about an hour of waiting in line we were checked in, and by now, I was really hungry.  I mean, really really hungry.  Hungry hungry hippos hungry.

But we persevered, even with the Miserable Family behind us grumbling the whole time, and got ourselves checked in and up the gangway and on the boat.  Huzzah!  Vacation had begun!

In our stateroom, we found champagne and roses and chocolate strawberries awaiting us for our anniversary, a very delightful start to our vacation.  I’d sucked the strawberries down when Angela, also famished, pointed out that she might like some of the chocolate.

“Uh, I might have left some on the stem,” I said.

“Never mind,” she said.  “We’ll just go get a snack at the-“

BONG!  “This is a drill!  Please report to emergency stations.”

“I am not pleased at how this is starting out,” she said.  “Not pleased at all!”

One emergency drill later, we were finally ready to go find some food.  And find it we did, at the big going away barbecue, which was not at all too bad.  Once we’d both eaten (in the company of the nice couple from the airport, because they’d found a table) we were ready to explore the ship.

“I DON’T KNOW WHY ALL THESE PEOPLE HAVE TO BE UP HERE!” Mr. Grumpy was saying as he came in while we left.

I snickered.  “That’ll be the last time we see his sour face,” I said.

Left with time to kill, we decided to play that classic cruise line game: shuffleboard.  It’s worth nothing that I pretty much kicked Angela’s butt, racing out to a 7-0 lead, which I held until the very last shuffle of the game, when I landed in the -10 space and went back to zero, thus earning a tie between us.

Dad-gummit.

After that, we decided to take in a show.  Although we were 15 minutes early, most of the good seats were claimed, but thanks to Angela’s eagle eye we spotted a seat pretty much dead center of the theater with nobody in front of it.

“Great job!” I complemented her as we sat down.

I noted that there were lots of servers around, hanging on people hoping to convince them to give a tip for good service.  Because we don’t dress particularly well and look like we have no money, they were largely ignoring us, so we just happily chatted.  Until…

“I DON’T KNOW WHY WE HAVE TO COME HERE!” I heard a sour voice, like nails on chalkboard, behind me.  Turning, I saw Mr. Grumpy and his wife sitting down in the row behind us.  He proceeded to grump and complain for a while, until a server (who I really think must have vision problems) latched onto him like a leech and started chatting him up.

Mr. Grumpy looked so unhappy.  It was hilarious.  Funniest thing I’d seen all day.

“Why is he following us?” Angela hissed. “I’m going to push him overboard!”

“He’s not following us,” I said.  “It’s just that we have good taste and better timing.”

“I’m still gonna push him overboard,” she said.

“So long as there aren’t cameras around, go ahead,” I suggested.

The show was good.  It started out with some dancers who make Up with People look lethargic and depressed, and finished with a really funny comedian.  In between there was also a tribute band to Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, which was much better than I anticipated.  I never knew how much of their music I was familiar with!

But all good things come to an end, and after that we went to rustle up some dinner.  We ate in a really nice little restaurant looking out over the sea, one that was almost empty for no apparent reason.  And then we retired to go to bed, exhausted from what turned out to be a pretty good day.

As we sat in the cabin, sailing along, I looked over at Angela and I said “You know what?  You can hardly tell you’re on a boat.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said.  “The sea is really calm.  I guess the ship is so big you can’t feel it. I’m going to take off my seasickness bands and not worry about overnight.”

And so we fell asleep, happy and content.

Prank Partners are Important

As I’ve previously admitted, I’m in fatherhood strictly for the pranks.  I mean, the love and adoration and passing on the family name is all well and good, but nothing really compares to the look of utter shock on a child’s face when they find out that they’ve been served.

But you know what takes a good prank to the level of great prank?  It’s your prank partner.  Oh, sure, a solo prank can be good, but a multi-person prank can be the stuff of legend.

I once tried to pull a prank in Belgium with a co-worker who was unfamiliar with the stuff of pranks.  The whole setup was that I printed off a fake letter from his car company that showed a torched car, and she wrote up a whole thing in French about how there was a fire and his car would be in for repair longer than foreseen (he had it in the shop for a couple of days).  Then I addressed it and put it in his letter box.

Of course, about ten seconds later she’s in his office.  “Did you see the letter?” she asks.  “Did you read it?  Wasn’t it funny?”

Um, doofus?  It’s not a good prank if you go and ruin it before he sees it.

So today, on the way over to pick up the girl, William and I worked out a great prank to use on Victoria.  She’d spent two hours in the goofiest gymnastics final ever, and by the time we got to her she was hungry and cranky and absolutely ready to go.

“So,” she says.  “What’s for sups?”

“William and I thought it would be nice to stop by a restaurant that just opened in town.  You know how your mom is – she never wants to try new things.  One of the owners’ kids goes to school with William.”

“Oh, boy!” she says.  “What’s it called?”

“It’s called Escar-to-Go,” I said.  “It’s a takeout French restaurant that serves only escargot-themed dishes, like curly fried snails.”

“Gross!” she says.  “That’s disgusting.  I do not eat snails, ever!  I hate them!”

“Come on!” William says.  “Jhanre says that the cooking is awesome.  And he’s a great guy, and a good friend!”

“I don’t care!” she says.  “I don’t care about him, or his parents, or their stupid restaurant.  I will not eat snails!”

“Oh, come on,” I said.  “Don’t be a close-minded barbarian.  Try something new!”

“You are forgetting that I have had snails!” she’s starting to yell now as we drive down the road.  “I ate them once and they are disgusting!”

“But they don’t taste like snails!” William says.  “I want to support my friend!”

“Yeah, they make a snail-patty sandwich that’s a fusion of American and French cuisine, called the Escarburger.  I hear it’s their specialty.”

“Gross!”

“Jhanre gave me some,” William said.  “It was delicious.”

“Come on, a snail patty under a sheet of goat cheese served on delicious snail bread?   Yum!”

“Talk to the hand!”  She sticks her hands up in our faces.  “I will not eat there!  You can’t make me!”

“But Jhanre-“

“I don’t care about your stupid friend and his stupid parents and their-“

“HE IS NOT STUPID!  Don’t you talk that way about my friend!”

“You’ll eat it if I say you’ll eat it,” I said.

“If you make me eat it I’ll go up and make myself vomit before my shower,” she said.  “I swear I will!  I don’t care if it is the start of bulimia, I’m not eating snails and you can’t make me!”

At this point, I couldn’t help it and I started laughing. 

William, though, wasn’t done.  “You never want to support my friends!  We’re always doing things for your stupid friends and you won’t do this one little thing for me without being all teenager and making it a big drama.”

“I HATE SNAILS!”

“Jhanre is my only friend!  The only one!  He might be there!  I might get to see him!  But do you care?  Noooo!  You just want to be difficult!”

I was starting to worry about William. Did he really feel this way?

“I DON’T LIKE SNAILS!”

“WHY DO YOU HATE MY FRIENDS?”

We nearly died, I was laughing so hard as we drove down the interstate.  Finally, I had to call a halt to it, mostly because I was now worried that William was having a psychotic episode, perhaps post-concussionitis or something.

“Victoria, I’m going to start calling you Sharpie.”

“Why?”

“Because you are an easy mark!”

She looked at me, death rays shooting out of her eyes, nostrils flared, glowering at me angrily as she ground her teeth.

“There is no Escar-to-Go, is there?”

“Do you really think that there’s a drive-through escargot restaurant in our town?  Really?”

“Uh, now that I think about it-“

“There’s no Jhanre, either,” William said.  “And I had to make that up in, like, two seconds.”

She fumed for a long moment.  “I hate you two,” she said.  “Why would you even do that?”

“Because pranks are our way of saying that we love you,” I said.

“Yeah,” William said.  “We love you, sister.”

“I guess that’s sweet,” she said totally unconvinced.  “What are we going to have for dinner?”

“Frozen slug,” William said.

Suddenly, she went off again.  “SLUG!  THAT’S WORSE THAN SNAIL!  STOP THE CAR RIGHT NOW BEFORE I…”  Her head spun around, exorcist-like, for like ten seconds.  “You’re just pulling my leg again, aren’t you?”

“Oh, totally,” I said.

“Good,” she said.

“They’re thawed.” William said.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!”

That’s why you have to pick the right prank partner.