Speaking of Needing Duct Tape.........

At breakfast today Frank and Marie had a fight, and she threw a handful of pepper at his plate.

He coughed twice and sneezed, and a lady at the table behind us jumped up, grabbed her tray, and loudly said to her husband “RONALD!!! Let’s get out of here! I think that kid has SWINE FLU!”

We’ll have to wait and see if we finish the trip in quarantine.

Grumpy Summer Vacation, Day 8

Today we were in Cabo San Lucas.

The breakfast buffet is good, but sometimes has a darker side. This morning I saw them refilling the scrambled egg pitchers at the omelet station from a cardboard box that said "Family Style Frozen Egg Food Product". Yummy. It also features sausage, ham, and bacon under a sign that says "Various Meat Pieces". Isn't that just mouth watering?

Every ship I've ever been on has a display of statues, trophies, plaques, etc., presented to the ship on it's first call in any port. For lack of anything better to do I read some of them today. My favorite, from a Mexican beach town, said "We welcome the S.S. Humungous, and wich you far winds and smoth sees" (sic).

One benefit of cruising with Mrs. Grumpy is that she speaks Tagalog, which is the language of the Philippines. You may not see any benefit to this, but it gives us an odd, at times lurid, look into the crew's lives. The majority of the housekeeping, meal serving, and cooking staff are from Indonesia or the Philippines, and use Tagalog to talk to each other. They assume most passengers don’t understand it. So often the bar staff will chatter while they prepare our Diet Cokes, and afterwards Mrs. Grumpy will tell me that they were discussing who passed out drunk at last night's crew party, or which of our waitstaff wears a thong, or what an ass they think I am (she says the last is the most common topic). At one point 2 waitresses and a cook were in an elevator with us, and after we stepped off at our floor she told me they were discussing their sexual threesome of the night before. Of course, for all I know Mrs. Grumpy is just making this crap up, but it's still entertaining.

The lunch buffet usually has a few bowls of cookies, and some really awesome desserts like "Extra Huge Slab of Chocolate" or "Whip Cream Crumb Streudel Cake". These are closely guarded by the ship's Dessert Nazis, highly trained, no-nonsense servers armed with BIG SHARP KNIVES, whose job is to carefully serve one piece of dessert at a time. If they think you may try to take so much as a crumb without asking them to do it for you, you will lose fingers (though you can get them back later from the sushi bar, if you don’t mind soy sauce and ginger on them).

What's funny is that a few feet away is an unguarded tray of "Mango Diet Cake" which nobody touches. In fact, it looks about the same each day, and I think at night they just dye (or paint) it a different color. So one day it's orange "Pumpkin Diet Cake", and the next day it's green "Asparagus Diet Cake". It's possible they've been using the same tray since the ship was launched. For all I know they're really wood blocks.

Craig lost a tooth today. It fell out while he was getting his face painted to look like a pirate, and the missing tooth only enhanced things. Amazing how fast he learned to suck ice cream through the gap. So now the tooth fairy has to visit the S.S. Humungous, a service not provided by Cruiseship Lines.

Due to my remarkable talent at trivia (we all have our skills, mine are just pointless) I won Mrs. Grumpy and I dinner in the ship's super-deluxe restaurant, which they charge extra for. For the life of me I can't figure out why some suckers pay extra to eat there, considering it has the same food as the rest of the ship, maybe just somewhat better service, and you've already paid for food with your fare. But since I won it for free, we went.

The brochure said it featured "spectacular ocean views", which it did. However, a walkway surrounded the restaurant, so your view was occasionally interrupted by someone going by. This was no biggie until a monstrously obese guy wearing a thong spandex mens bikini decided to stop outside our window and press his nose against the glass to see what people inside were eating. He blotted out the sun to the extent that other diners thought it was an eclipse and lit candles. He was shortly joined by his equally svelte wife, also in spandex gear.

I was trying to decide if I should rap on the glass to make him leave when they wandered off on their own. With the darkness lifted our waiter came over to refill our waters, and softly said he hoped we'd enjoyed the unscheduled whale sightings.

Our dinner also included entertainment provided by an older couple across from us, who ordered crab legs. To our astonishment Mrs. Elderly ACTUALLY ATE THEM WHOLE, biting off big chunks of crab meat AND shell, crunching it up, and swallowing. Her husband was using the shell-crackers, but not Grandma. The waiters and other diners were also watching, and after she finished I thought we should give her a round of applause, or dentures, or something.

There was a comedy show tonight. At one point the comedian asked "Anyone here from Tennessee?" and the family in front of us all cheered. So he asked them what part, and the mother yelled "Georgia!".

The comedian was so lucky. You can't script that kind of stupidity.

Karaoke Kuestion

Is it some sort of International Maritime Law that every cruise ship have at least one horribly untalented warbling woman on board who wants to sing "Memory" (from Cats) badly off key at karaoke?

If there isn't, then WTF is she doing on this, my 6th cruise?

Love in an Elevator

On an elevator ride up to Camp Cruiseship with Marie, a heavily perfumed lady got in with us. After about 10 seconds Marie said "Dad, it smells like bad cleaning chemicals and bug spray in here."

It’s really hard to pretend you don’t know a child after they call you “Dad”.

Grumpy Summer Vacation, Day 7

At sea again.

At breakfast the table near us was occupied by a guy in his 70's and large extended family. After a few minutes he suddenly launched into a loud lecture to his family members (and unfortunate nearby diners) on methods he was using to improve his "spincter" control. He didn't clarify which of his bodily "spincters" he was referring to, leaving such sordid details to our imaginations. His family seemed to take this in stride.

1st point: I really don’t care about your "spincter" or how tight it is, or how much it's been leaking recently, or what you do to keep it tight.

2nd point: It's called a "SPHINCTER" you illiterate dipshit.


Due to an unscheduled Category 1 hurricane, we were informed today that the ship would be skipping Puerto Vallarta and later going to Ensenada instead. I don't see this as a big deal, but the torch & pitchfork mob outside the purser's office sure did. It was so much fun listening to them that I got a front row seat in the lobby and ordered endless Diet Cokes. You heard things like:

"So what if it's a hurricane! I want to go fishing!"

"I knew a guy who survived Katrina, and the boat he done lived on was smaller than this."

"Can't you just drop me off to go shopping, and bring the ship back later?"

“Why can’t you just have the hurricane go somewhere else?”

“What causes hurricanes? Are they different from earthquakes?”


While Mrs. Grumpy took a nap, I went to the pool on the aft deck. I got a Diet Coke and jumped in the hot tub, enjoying a soak while 2 pimply adolescent guys argued about movies on the other side of the tub. After a few minutes a collection of blond teenage titwillows jumped in the hot tub with us (the kind who never gave me the time of day in high school, and now call on my office as drug reps).

They paid no attention to the middle-aged doctor and 2 pimply guys, just discussed where they were going to go shopping in Cabo San Lucas. When I looked over at the zit brothers I noticed that both were transfixed on the titwillows and (more alarmingly) their hands were underwater and out of sight. So I jumped out of the tub before a sticky situation developed.


Why on Earth does the ship’s TV show Cartoon Network, with the shows in English and the ads in Spanish? And why are the commercials so damn funny when you can’t understand a word of them?

At lunch I went for some fries. That station was empty, but the line for burgers was full. So I just walked ahead of the burger line to get some fries, only to have a 3-toothed hag kick me in the shin, throw a grape, and loudly accuse me of cutting in front of her. I told her that the ship’s dentist was on deck 1, and got my fries.

After lunch Frank wanted to go golfing. Playing miniature golf is an odd sensation when you're doing it 11 stories above the ocean, on a moving platform. If the ship rolls it can really screw up a shot in a high-stakes game of minigolf. As a result I owe Frank a nickel.

I want to know who picks what they show on the Jumbotron poolside screen? Sometimes it's entertaining, like “Night at the Museum”or “Star Wars”. Today, however, it was "Tom Jones! Live! In Vegas!" It looked like it was filmed in the late 60's, early 70's. I was hoping some inebriated babe would toss her room key up at the screen, but no such luck.

At around 5:00 the captain made an announcement. These start with a few chimes and then "Ladies and Gentlemen, Captain Speaking” (as far as I can tell Captain Speaking has commanded every ship I've ever been on). Unfortunately, the rest of the message is usually garbled. I've never understood this. These companies spend billions to build monster ships, but have the PA systems made by the company that does the inaudible drive-thru's at McD's. So the rest of the announcement sounds like he's either repeating an order for cheeseburgers, fries, and a shake, or that he's telling you the ship is sinking.

After he was done gargling into the intercom I flagged down a passing ship’s officer (I think his name was Mahjong, I swear) and asked him what the captain said. Mahjong smiled and told me "It concerned the ship, sir" and walked off. Thanks, Officer Mahjong, I feel much better now.

At the dinner buffet tonight I was in line behind a lady who asked if the seafood enchiladas contained seafood. WTF?

We’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon on this cruise. Disappearing food. Marie will ask if she can try your soup or something. You give her a taste. And she politely says thank you. Then you look away for a minute, and when you return to your meal your bowl of soup or whatever is gone. It's now on Marie’s plate. And she gives you this look of surprise, as if the ship's roll had shifted it there.

"Can't We All Just Get Along?"

I gotta say, anyone who feels people from different cultures, ethnicities, races, religions, whatever can't possibly get along HAS NEVER BEEN ON A CRUISE!

The crews on these ships (I've been on 6 cruises total) are a remarkable polyglot from Europe (east and west), Russia and former Soviet republics, India, and the Pacific rim (Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, and a few places I've never heard of), with a few south Americans, Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, and English sprinkled in. Most of the officers are Italian.

Anyway, watching these remarkably disparate people working together quite efficiently actually makes you feel there is hope for humanity.

And I can't even keep my kids from killing each other.

What the Hell is With This Music?

Is there a company that specializes in recording reggae versions of popular songs for use on cruise ships? It's like freakin' calypso Muzak.

So far today I've heard reggae Foreigner, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Neil Diamond, and disco.

Do they have reggae versions of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", mon?

Argument Clinic At Sea

My son Craig will be a lawyer someday. He can argue with a wall.

This morning he walked to the bar with me when I went to get a Diet Coke. A lady was getting a Blue Hawaii, and he argued with her and the bartender that it was turquoise, not blue.

Grumpy Summer Vacation, Day 6

The S.S. Humungous is at sea today.

Craig is sleeping in the bunk bed over me, with the heads overlapping. At some point I woke up to notice his pillow was overhanging the edge by an inch or so. I woke up again a while later, when it was about 6 inches out, then dozed off again. This went on until I was woken by the pillow itself falling on me. I somehow fell back asleep again, only to be awoken a few minutes later by Craig accusing me of stealing his damn pillow, and waking up everyone else. Can I have some Diprivan bought to my cabin?

I have no idea where they get ideas to decorate these ships. On this one the hallways are lined with paintings of people in the early 1920's era, looking happy while golfing, listening to jazz, and sipping gin & tonic on the deck of a steamship. One showed 2 guys looking through a travel brochure for "Beautiful New Jersey- Sunshine, Sand, and Scenery". There is also a great picture of 2 women talking, one with short, bright purple hair, and the other wearing a dress made to look like leaves are covering her breasts. It looked like Mrs. Joker talking to Poison Ivy in a Batman comic.

One elevator painting shows a rather severe looking-woman with a body pose and facial expression that suggest she's either flexing all her muscles at once or desperately trying to become unconstipated. Or both.

If I only have one complaint it’s that this ship doesn’t have a sightseeing deck, like the one we went on in 2003 did:




(Fortunately for me, Mrs. Grumpy doesn’t read my blog).

I love the phone in my room. It has autodial buttons labeled "Guest services", "Room Service", "Housekeeping", and "Spa". If you press "Guest Services" You get this message: "Thank you for calling guest services. To reach room service, please hang up and press the ‘room service’ button. To reach housekeeping, please hang up and press the ‘housekeeping’ button. To reach the spa, please hang up and press the ‘spa’ button.” Isn’t that helpful?

The toilets on these ships are remarkable works of technology. Mrs. Grumpy calls them the "Suckmaster 2000" (her phrase, not a sci-fi porn flick). When you press the button they make a loud whooshing noise and everything just vanishes. You actually feel a draft of air being pulled into the john from under the door. You have to be sure that none of your limbs are anywhere near the bowl when you flush, or the only thing the crew will find is your sneakers.

The scuba diver in me thinks about what an awesome dive this ship would be if it sank. Hopefully not on this trip, though.

I was laying out by the main pool, reading a book and watching the kids swim. And suddenly the overhead Jumbotron TV begins blasting E! and the latest on Jon & Kate! Can't I get away from worthless people of this sort here? Why does this shit have to follow us everywhere? I had no idea who these two losers even were until I heard my office girls talking about them. Why can't I relax in peace on my vacation by the ship’s pool with my Diet Coke, NOT have to listen to sordid stories from the famous and pointless?

This afternoon was the poolside "Hairy Chest" competition. I suggested Mrs. Grumpy enter it, and will now be finishing the cruise with a black eye (in addition to my broken foot). She later submitted my name as a candidate, but suggested they have a Hairy Ass contest that I could win.

After the pool Mrs. Grumpy, my black eye, and I went to a lounge. We ordered Diet Cokes and listened to a girl with a thick Indonesian accent belting out ABBA. It was awesome. "See dat gril, watch dat seen, she be dat dancing keen". I loved it.

Wandering through the ship I ended up in one of the overpriced stores, glancing at such useless baubles as Cruiseship Lines stuffed animals, shirts, and shot glasses. They have a small display of overpriced Tylenol, Tums, and other over-the-counter drugs.

It occurred to me that they could be making a FORTUNE if they also sold condoms and Plan B. In fact, this is the perfect environement for both given the large amounts of circulating singles, hormones, and alcohol.

At dinner a dining room supervisor came over to ask us how we were doing. Seeing our walkie-talkies she said. "oh you have walkie-talkies? Do you use them to talk to each other on the ship?"

Mrs. Grumpy smiled, nodded, and kicked my good leg under the table to keep me from being a smart-ass and earning another black eye. I don’t want to be mistaken for a raccoon. That could result in me becoming an entreé in the sushi bar.

And He's Not Even Santa

I have the oldest kid in the world who believes that the ship's costumed mascot "Cruiseship Clyde" is real.

My Readers Write About the Cruise

Several of you have written in asking how I can take so much time off from work. To answer your questions:

I am NOT phenomenally wealthy. I make a decent living, working 70-90 hours per week most of the year. Being in solo practice means I don't have any partners to argue with when I want to leave town. I field my own calls no matter where I am.

These trips are not cheap. I know that. The drawback of solo practice is that when I'm not in the office, I'm not getting paid. So I have to figure out how much the trip will cost, in both actual price AND how much money I lose by not working.

So why do I do it? One reason. As Mrs. Grumpy says "The kids are here only to visit us for a few years". So I devote as much of summer vacation and other school breaks as I can afford to being Dad, and not Doctor.

As my Science Marches On Department says, "nobody dies wishing they'd spent more time at the office".

Grumpy Summer Vacation, Day 5

So we parted from my parents, and are now off on our cruise. Normally we don't do 2 cruises in the same year, but recession rates won't last forever, and as an American citizen I'm obliged to support some sort of industry. So I might as well have fun at it.

We drove to the port today. Due to whiny children we stopped at a Burger King for lunch. While we were waiting in line 2 cops came in for lunch and got in line, too. The next thing I knew Craig was pointing out that all the kitchen staff were running out the back door. So I told the Legion of Whiners to shut up, get back in the car, and that we’d eat on the ship since it was already paid for.

And so we boarded the S.S. Humungous and are off. Same route we took in March, 2009, but different ship.

This is SO pathetic. The poolside bartender on this ship is the same one who worked on our last cruise (on the S.S. Buffet) in March. So after boarding Mrs. Grumpy and I went to get our Soda Cards (giving us unlimited Diet Cokes for the trip, an essential part of our existence). I walked over, he looked at me once, and without even asking brought me 2 Diet Cokes and rang me up for the Soda Cards.

Equally pathetic was checking the kids in to Camp Cruiseship, and having one of the directors say: “Oh, it's those twins who fight all the time. They were on the S.S. Buffet, too.”

We wandered around the ship. I took the kids up to the minigolf course, where Marie immediately showed that her golfing skills hadn't improved since Legoland. Her first shot went off the course and into a pool shower 1 deck down, almost killing the crewman who was cleaning it.

The ship hadn't even finished boarding, but already people were partying. The pools and hot tubs were full. The miniature golf course had a line. Every pool chair was taken. The band was blasting. People were carrying trays of food and drinks everywhere. AND WE HADN'T EVEN LEFT PORT YET! It occurred to me that Cruiseship Lines could market this as an all inclusive vacation and not even go anywhere. You could just board the ship and party for a week, without burning a drop of diesel. I personally would love a 1 week cruise where we never pulled into port. But that's just me.

As we wandered around the ship, we saw a woman heaving her lunch overboard. This is not a good sign when you haven't even left port yet.

This ship is huge. And very, very, very pink. I have no idea who designed this thing, but they really liked pink. It makes this ship just ideal if they hold a Gay Pride Cruise. It's an improvement over our last cruise on the S.S. Buffet, though, where the theme was "random paintings of naked people".

This ship (not including the passengers), however, is not lacking for naked people. The inaugural Camp Cruiseship kid’s party was held in the main nightclub, which allegedly has a Hollywood theme. This consists mainly of naked art-deco statues in various colors, sort of like life-size Academy Award Oscar trophies, lined up on a red carpet outside the door.

(click to enlarge)




In reality I'm sure that a line of naked, genital-less, people outside a nightclub would attract a crowd, but I'm not sure I'd want to go into the place. When I first saw them after boarding I assumed they were mannequins that were being left there until they could be posed in a store, but no such luck. They are part of the decor. However the Camp Cruiseship kids certainly enjoyed posing with them, pointing and giggling. Sure got more interest then the lady playing the "Hoki Poki" inside.

We had our first night’s dinner in the formal dining room. Our table was situated closely to another family's, so we got to overhear an exciting discussion between a mother and her teenage daughter. Ms. Teenwhinybutt was complaining about a blister on her foot that had popped during the day, and felt no one else in existence was taking it as seriously as they should be. To her family’s horror she suddenly whipped off her shoe and held her foot, with a large red oozing blister on it, OVER THE DINING ROOM TABLE.

This certainly got a reaction from her parents, though I'm not sure it was as sympathatic as she thought it would be, and a waiter quickly brought her a band-aid. I assume he did this more to prevent other guests from being horrified and running away screaming.

I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted from being dragged out to dance with Marie, who thinks she’s a kangaroo when there’s music playing. And she's dislocated both my shoulders.

Grumpy Summer Vacation, Day 4

This morning we grabbed a table outside to have breakfast. When the twins failed to materialize from the buffet room, I went searching for them. To my horror they'd set-up camp by the hot water spigot, giving free (and unsolicited) lessons to passersby on how to make hot chocolate while blocking the coffee urn (which is what most people were looking for). I dragged them off, restoring access to caffeine.

After breakfast we went back to Sea World, for day 2 of our pass. I produced our 5 tickets, and the wrinkled crone at the gate chewed me out because we have to give fingerprints that match each ticket, and since I hadn’t written each person’s name on the appropriate tickets “this will take forever to sort out, and you’re already holding up the line”.

Fortunately, we all got through on the first try, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Grumpy and I got through on child tickets and Frank and Marie used adult ones. So either we all have the same fingerprints or Sea World’s fingerprint-ID security system isn’t nearly as good as they think it is.

I spent the day hobbling around the park, due to Mrs. Grumpy stomping on my foot for trying to help a lady. We'd been going into the Shamu show, and some woman, who erroneously thought I looked helpful, came over and asked me if there was a difference between the 8:00 pm. and 10:00 pm "Shamu Rocks!" shows. I told her the 10:00 show was for adults only, and was called "Shamu Fucks!" That’s when my foot began hurting.

Why is it that my kids are too chicken shit to sit in the splash zones by themselves? And when I want to sit there, how come that’s suddenly the only time all day they won’t?

My Dad is always fun at these places, because he firmly feels you should be out of there before noon so he can go take a nap. When I was a kid, and stupid/naive/both, I believed him that a major amusement park would never be open past noon. Around 11:45 a.m. he’d say “Okay, that was the whole park, let's go somewhere for lunch and a nap". And then I'd go home and tell my friends about the 3 rides I'd been on, and they told me about the 45 they were on and the fireworks show at night, and I'd stupidly accept my father's explanation that they must have gone to a different park by the same name. It wasn't until I took my own kids to Disneyland that I realized the rides ran into the afternoon and night.

But my Dad has a truly remarkable talent. He can get into anything, regardless of what’s required to do so. He has the amazing ability, without saying a word, to look like he knows what he's doing and is where he's supposed to be. One year, on a Hawaiian vacation, we were driving around looking for a place to have lunch. He noticed a cruise ship in the harbor, parked in a lot near it, and led our family right past the ship’s guarded gangway and to the buffet. The security officer, who was checking everything that moved for a ship's ID, waved us through when my dad smiled and nodded to him. We ate there, and then strolled off and drove back to our hotel for his nap. On another trip he got us into a $25 per person luau with the same ability.

It was late afternoon at Seaworld and there was a Junior Achievement group having a private function at a pavilion, with a dinner buffet. There was a guard at the door, asking to see event tickets as people went it.

Mrs. Grumpy, my Mom, and I were walking past it, and suddenly noticed my Dad was inside, eating dinner and sitting with a group of parents. We didn’t know he’d even returned from his nap yet. As soon as we saw him we decided to try and join him, but were immediately stopped by the guard, who asked for our event tickets and photo ID's. My Dad stood inside laughing at us, then wandered over and said to the guard "It's okay, Bill, they're with me." The guard immediately smiled and let us through, so we had dinner with Junior Achievement.

How come the men’s room urinal has a sign above it explaining (in both English and Spanish) the dangers of drinking alcohol if you're pregnant?

While waiting in line (again) the twins began hitting each other, just as I noticed this sign nearby:



When I asked the employee standing there I was told that I couldn’t trade my kids in for another set. Is that false advertising or what?

On the way out we stopped to see if anyone had turned in Craig’s lost baseball cap. Another Mr. Asshole was in there, arguing with the manager on duty. He wanted his money back on the grounds that, after spending a full day at Sea World, he’d decided there weren't enough rides to make him happy.

Because we’re going on a cruise tomorrow, we had to do a bunch of laundry tonight. So Mrs. Grumpy and I took turns in the Residence Inn laundry room.

I gotta tell you, these other Residence Inn travelers are laundromatically aggressive psychopaths (or maybe they're still angry over not getting coffee this morning). If you aren't there they'll actually pull your wet clothes out of a machine, toss them on the floor, and reset the machine with their own load.

So I got a book and a shotgun and set up camp to protect, wash, and dry. We had a lot of laundry, and after a while other people using the room began to assume I worked there. They asked me for change, directions to the zoo, and how to get out coffee stains (I suggested a mixture of bleach and Bisquick, and if it ruined your shirt, you should have known better anyway).

Sea World Question

It just occured to me, while sitting here, maybe one of you can help me out.

In the early-mid 1970's, when my parents took my sister and I to Sea World, the sea lion show (the same one I'm waiting for now) had a trained bird named Pauline in it. My sister and I fought over whether Pauline was a duck (me) or penguin (my sister). I know we should know the difference, but remember we were little kids, and because of my Father's fear of getting sea lion germs splashed on him we were sitting pretty damn far from the stage.

If anyone remembers this character, please feel free to submit your answers or recollections.