Some people like the sea days. I’m not one of them. I find
the classic cruise activities a little boring. I am glad that many people enjoy
them. But I’m not fascinated by art auctions or the games and competitions. But
there was one that was so hopelessly awful that I knew I just had to take some
pictures. This was the ceremony to initiate people who were crossing the
equator by ship for the first time.
The awful queeny Filipino cruise director was in charge, of course.
At least he was not wearing one of his signature tight-fitting sequined tops. He announced that King Neptune was soon to arrive so that the “pollywogs” who had never crossed the equator would now become “shellbacks,” who were, apparently, better subjects to the Lord of the Ocean. All of this was recited in doggerel so bad that it would have embarrassed Ella Wilcox Wheeler.
And sure enough, Neptune arrived, though I never quite
pictured this Olympian as a bespectacled twink.
He was accompanied by “Queen Dee Dee” on the right, yes, the
one with a beard and plastic water balloon tits. It was never clear where they
managed to find these children or what they were supposed to be doing. At least
facing the pool, they did not have to look at that belly.
More bad verse followed. The pollywogs were “sentenced” to
having to kiss a plastic fish
and then be “baptized.”
My attention wandered. I noticed Ben from San Diego who,
inexplicably to me, had not won the “Mr. Sexy Legs” competition a couple days
before.
After this, I went off to the gym and did thirty minutes on the elliptical trainer where I listened to an audiobook on the history of Assyria. Listening to the exploits of Ashurbanipal helped me forget what I had just seen.
