Cruise People

I am not "Cruise People."  I do not like using cruise as an adjective or a verb.  I have never been on a cruise.  I do not want to go on a cruise.  People say to me, "How do you know you won't like it if you don't try it?"  Because I have spent 35 years with myself and nothing disgusts me to my core as much as the thought of a cruise. 

My wife is not "Cruise People."  She thinks she might be because she did it once.  But when it comes to vacations, Punk Rock Girl is essentially a labrador with a tennis ball.  "Ooooooooooh, I want to go to (fill in the blank)" is on constant repeat in the playlist of my life.  The fact that she wants to visit Ecuador is not separated from the mode of transport that might deliver her.

And yet I am regularly called upon to explain why I don't want to board one of the vile behemoths of the sea.  Apparently stooping to the common language of the uneducated with "I'm not Cruise People" doesn't carry the sufficient weight that I feel when it detaches venomously from my tongue.  So perhaps I need to take a minute to explain that my impression of a cruise is basically summed up by the future civilization of Wall-E.  Human beanbags floating around drinking Big Gulps is the status quo in this imaginary world in my head.  These people are from places with names like "Oklahoma" and they have a favorite cow.  I do not want to board a floating hotel with these people.  I want to pass them at the buffet while I leave the hotel where they pile orange chicken on top of their mashed potatoes.  You need more?  Ok, then.  Here are the top reasons I am in no mood to trip the cruise fantastic:

• Eating is not a recreational activity.  It is a necessity.  If you truly feel empowered by the opportunity to order more than one entree and send back any you don't like, you are a glutton and God will punish you with ateriosclerosis.  You will end up in your own personal version of Se7en (ugh...I can't believe my keyboard typed it that way) and you won't have Kevin Spacey to blame for your rampant diarrhea.
•  I do not want to talk to strangers.  My parents taught me not to talk to them and I love my parents.  If these strangers had anything to add to my life, they would not have waited for elevensies on the big boat to impart their wisdom.   
• Speed 2: Cruise Control
• There were places with regimented activities where people were forced to participate with dire consequences for being a fuddy-duddy.  They were called concentration camps and I thought we all agreed they were bad.  Now you want me to set sail on the Carnival Dachau?
• Beautiful people have their own boats.  People that go on cruises are not beautiful.  They are wrinkled and oddly shaped.  They often wear bathing suits.  I would end up spending the entire trip staring at the sun in hopes of blinding myself. 
• Excess is not attractive.  Spend good money on high quality in appropriate quantities. 
• My vacations never center around the hotel.  When I travel, I want to spend time in that locale, not the means of transport.  Man invented methods of flight.  It doesn't get old.  Embrace it.

These are the reasons I do not intend to cruise.  Punk Rock Girl is the only person that will ever convince me to board one of these monstrosities.  Even then, I will not approach the trip with an open mind. 

To paraphrase Colin Farrell in In Bruges, "If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, cruises might impress me.  But I didn't, so they don't."

I'll leave you on this subject with the words of David Foster Wallace on the subject, from his wonderful article "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."

I have learned that there are actually intensities of blue beyond very, very bright blue.  I have eaten more and classier food than I've ever eaten, and eaten this food during a week when I've also learned the difference between "rolling" in heavy seas and "pitching" in heavy seas.  I have heard a professional comedian tell folks, without irony, "But seriously."  I have seen fuchsia pantsuits and menstrual-pink sportcoats and maroon-and-purple warm-ups and white loafers worn without socks...I have heard upscale adult U.S. citizens ask the Guest Relations Desk whether snorkeling necessitates getting wet, whether the skeetshooting will be held outside, whether the crew sleeps on board, and what time the Midnight Buffet is.  I now know the precise mixological difference between a Slippery Nipple and a Fuzzy Navel.  I know what a Coco Loco is.  I have in one week been the object of over 1500 professional smiles.  I have burned and peeled twice.  I have shot skeet at sea.  Is this enough?  At the time it didn't seem like enough.  I have felt the full clothy weight of a subtropical sky.  I have jumped a dozen times at the shattering, flatulence-of-the-gods sound of a cruise ship's horn.  I have absorbed the basics of mah-jongg, seen part of a two-day rubber of contract bridge, learned how to secure a life jacket over a tuxedo, and lost at chess to a nine-year-old girl.

I have now heard - and am powerless to describe - reggae elevator music.  I have learned what it is to become afraid of one's own toilet.  I have acquired "sea legs" and would like now to lose them.  I have tasted caviar and concurred with the little kid sitting next to me that it is: blucky. 

I have heard people in deck chairs say in all earnestness that it's the humidity rather than the heat.  I have been - thoroughly, professionally, and as promised beforehand - pampered.  I have, in dark moods, viewed and logged every type of erythema, keratinosis, pre-melanomic lesion, liver spot, eczema, wart, papular cyst, potbelly, femoral cellulite, varicosity, collagen and silicone enhancement, bad tint, hair transplants that have not taken - i.e. I have seen nearly naked a lot of people I would prefer not to have seen nearly naked.  I have felt as bleak as I've felt since puberty, and have filled almost three Mead notebooks trying to figure out whether is was Them or Just Me.

Preach it DFW.  (And R.I.P.)