Our Grand Exit - 18 days through the Panama Canal

January 2017

The last day of 2016 was also our last day working in an industry that has served us well for the past few decades. We decided to start our next chapter with an extended escape so that we could clear our minds. Liane, our trusted travel consultant, found an 18-day cruise that seemed like a great fit. It accomplished two objectives – an extended break and landed us in Florida, which was our intended destination.

At this point we are not sure if this is our retirement, extended sabbatical, or simply starting the next thing. It doesn’t matter. We will figure it out. Our first step - unplug from e-mail and phones – and read a lot of stuff that we have been putting off. My near term reading plan includes Hemmingway short stories, Lee Childs mystery thrillers, and Nigel Calder sailing manuals.

Liane knows that I don’t like crowds, I don’t like packing and un-packing, and I don’t particularly like meeting new people – so she found this cruise for us. Since it is the only option that fit into our dates – we said ‘yes’.

It is a small ship and offers certain amenities that inflate the fare to three times that of our past cruising experiences. As such, we have noticed some differences in contrast to the more “affordable” cruise ships. There are no kids – but lots of octogenarians on board. Many of them speak with some derivative of a Commonwealth accent and another large number who speak with an American east-coast posh accent that sounds almost British. Then there is us. I don’t know what we are.

Caviar is served around the clock in unlimited quantities but I haven’t been able to find a single potato chip.

When we tried to board the ship, people kept re-checking our credentials because, from the looks of us and the spring in our step they thought we were supposed to be on the booze cruise down the way.

Upon arrival, we found our cabin stocked with champagne on ice and an engraved invitation to dine with Marie – the cruise ship singer. While our preference would typically be room service pizza and beer taken on our private balcony – we thought for a moment and decided we would accept the invitation. It seemed harmless.

We arrived at the formal dining room at the appointed time. The room is probably capable of holding up to 300 people. I was holding the invitation at an angle of display as my proof that we actually belonged. Whenever I’m in these situations I feel like I’m about to be discovered as an interloper and escorted out.

The maître de greeted us by name (how did he know that?), ignored my awkward flashing of the invitation, offered his arm to Kim, and led us to Marie’s table while I abruptly shoved the invitation into the pocket of my off-the-rack blue blazer.

Marie is attractive and in her early twenties, British singer, proper, polite, and hosted the table of 10 from a seat centrally situated on the oblong table. Kim and Marie chatted and their conversation carried on a bit too long as it seemed they were bonding, being the only two females in the room under the age of 60. I assume the 10 guests were selected at random – but not really sure how we came to be part of this group.

I glanced at the table and noticed with some degree of distress that name cards had been placed so that Kim and I would not be seated together. This added to my anxiety at being in the unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation. I was seated at the pointy end of the oblong table between two pleasant ladies who appeared to be in their early 80’s. To my right was Helen from Texas and then a guy named Morrie (I think) from Connecticut and then Kim. To my left was Connielou, then Morrie’s wife, then Connielou’s newlywed husband – another guy named Morrie I think, and then Marie. The people at the far end of the table are not really part of my story.

The conversation began slowly and politely. We learn that Morrie #1 and his wife ran a men’s fine clothing store in Connecticut, Connielou’s nephew is an Americas Cup sailing champion, Morrie #2 has a nephew who was a world ranked tennis player and is now a commentator on the New England Tennis Channel or some shit (I looked it up – it’s true), Helen moved to Texas from Connecticut after her husband passed away, and oddly enough. Morrie#1 also had a neighbor who moved from Connecticut to Texas after her husband passed away.

There were a couple of bread baskets on the table and one was positioned in front of me. In an abstract act to make it look like I had something to do instead of talk about my expansive worldly accomplishments - I took a roll from the basket and hesitated before I put it on my bread plate. The plates and glasses were all crammed pretty close together so I worked through a pantomime that someone taught me to figure out which bread plate is mine.

Holding my hands out in front of me making little circles with the index fingers and thumbs. Looking down the thumb and forefinger on the left hand make a letter “b” and on the right hand it is a “d”.  “b” = bread goes left. “d” = drink goes right.

At that same moment, I notice that Kim, like me, is taking a tiny cracker-like thing from the basket on her end of the table. She has no intention of eating it – she is just filling a nervous gap in conversation. She proceeds to put the cracker-like thing on the wrong bread plate. I try to get her attention, but she won’t look at me. In fairness to her – the plates were positioned awkwardly and the one she was supposed to use was closer to Morrie#1 while the one to her right was very close to her plate. The natural thing for me to do at this point would be to pass the basket along – but I don’t want to create a bread collision and embarrass Kim when everything would come to a halt. There is no bread flow when one person takes the wrong side. It throws everything off.

So the bread baskets stayed in place. Kim and I were the only two who indulged for the rest of the night. I think the others noticed Kim’s faux pox and politely avoided the impending bread conflict by ignoring the fact that there was bread on the table.

As people get older it seems that people like to complain a lot. We were less than 6 hours on the ship and there was already a long list of complaints coming from our dinner party. Kim and I sat quietly, relieved that we did not have to say much – just nod in agreement at the right time. It got interesting when Helen ordered a coffee and then scolded the waiter for bringing her a coffee instead of a cappuccino. I gave him a slight nod – so he knew that he didn’t actually screw up. He apologized to her and took the coffee away and Helen blurted out “…and this ship doesn’t provide those… you know… escorts”. Huh. That woke me up. “Crystal Cruise Lines provide those gentlemen who will dance with you … this ship doesn’t… what are they called?” hmmm… gigolos I wondered. If we had internet on this ship I would google it.

Earlier in the day I read a short story by Earnest Hemmingway called “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber”. I had read it before.  This was a different version. I think the version we read in high school had the n-word and sex parts taken out of it. In the story, there is an event where Francis Macomber is on safari hunting a lion and he wounds the lion and ends up running like an arm-flailing frightened coward when the dying lion jumps out of the tall grass at him. The great white hunter courageously saves the day.  I was about to have my own Francis Macomber cowardly moment.

As the conversation settled into a comfortable rhythm where the group alternated between complaining about the ship and bragging about their famous kids and nephews and such, Kim and I realized that we could sit back and passively observe without having to contribute much.  I relaxed for a moment … then…

I heard a slipping, crashing sound directly behind me. And a frail voice calling out “Harrrry… I’ve fallen... Harrrrrrry…” I turned behind me and saw a lady and the maître de sprawled on the floor, him having been pulled to the ground by the falling lady. Apparently, the offering of the arm gesture is for show only – they don’t practice stopping an actual fall. Harry continued to shuffle along, oblivious to the crash behind him.

At this moment, the great white hunter would have sprung up from his seat and took command of the situation. Check her breathing and pulse, isolated her neck and spine, “Annie, Annie are you okay?” Cowardly Francis Macomber would pretend nothing happened and reach for another roll from the bread basket. You can guess which thing I did.

A few seconds later, overcome with shame, I realized that I needed to do something. It was too late. The fallen lady was now surrounded by men in their 70’s and 80’s clutching and pulling at her limbs to try to lift her off the ground – this resulted in scooting her across the floor while the poor woman wailed at the pinching and pulling.  I tried to calculate how I could enter the fray and help out. Then she shouted “just leave me alone and I’ll stand up”. And she did.

These falling scenarios are so commonplace on these ships that the interactions at our table never halted. It was like nothing even happened.

The conversation turned to boating. Helen from Texas mentioned that she used to live in a boating community in Connecticut and she had the biggest slip on the property but no boat. So she sold the slip to a guy named Norman.

As they say in Independence… I shit you not… Morrie #1 says “we also knew a Helen in Connecticut who didn’t have a boat and sold her slip to our neighbor, Norman. Isn’t life strange that way”.

Eventually he figured it out…

“wait, did you live at xyz and your husband walked around naked all day with the curtains open?”.

“Yes, that was my late husband Ernie. I didn’t know you could see in our windows! We shopped at your store! I remember now”.

“You did. And I always wondered why you came in the store one day and bought pajamas – he never wore pajamas”.

“The home care nurses stopped coming unless he would put clothes on…”

…. We all started laughing and the noise level got slightly higher and we were all being regaled by more stories about naked Ernie…

We didn’t notice at the time – but at the next table there was a gentleman who was glaring at us. Seething. Confused. His party was subdued and ours was getting more raucous as the evening progressed.

He saw beautiful Marie and beautiful Kim being entertained at a table of randomly placed people where no one appeared to be coupled up with anyone yet everyone was talking and laughing. He specifically sneered at me, sitting at what he thought was the “head” of the oblong table. I was in his seat. He is the regaling one. The natural leader of the pack. While I’m basking in the joy that is rightfully his -  he is stuck at somber table #1 in God’s waiting room.

My friends and past blog readers accuse me of embellishing things. So you probably think that last paragraph was some fanciful imagined scene playing out in my head… lest you doubt me … read on.

The seething man got up from his seat in the middle of the meal and walked over to our table. He interrupted our conversation and made an announcement loud enough for most of the room to hear.

“I find you to be a very interesting group. Very interesting indeed. Quite a collection, you all are. Can I ask how you all know each other?”

Morrie #2 gave a dismissive answer to brush him off – but he would not give up.

He extended a pointed finger at the end of his fully extended arm directly at me – like the prosecutor pointing at the guilty defendant…

“You. Yes you. What EXACTLY is your connection to this group?”.

In my mind – what he also said was “I see you sitting there in your outlet mall jacket and I saw you spell out b and d with your fingers because you never learned proper etiquette and I see you trying to eat with two hands and the downward-facing fork in your left hand is the wrong kind of fork and that is why food keeps falling off of it…you are an imposter!!!”

I agreed with him… I didn’t really belong there… I nervously fumbled for my crumpled invitation in the pocket of my cheap jacket…

“Don’t ask me – Marie invited me and I just showed up”. I gestured toward Marie so everyone would stop looking at me.

“Which one is Marie? Why did she invite you?”

Marie quietly explained the situation to him and invited him to see the maître de about being invited to a hosted dinner.  Of course, he’d have to wait until the maître de got back from the infirmary following the slip and fall incident.

Morrie #2 dismissed him with a polite and proper equivalent of “get the f* out of here” and he returned to his table. Then the guys made jokes about him while he glared in my direction. Looks like I have a posse who will look out for me.

I’ve seen him on the ship a few times since – and he still glares at me. Retired less than a week and on the ship less than one day and I already have a nemesis. Good news is that I also have a posse.

Liane, what have you gotten me into? What’s my play here? I’m in foreign territory.