Day 17- H O R R I B L E B O S S E S

The next morning I was up bright and early again to go and see my new favorite public speaker, retired NFL referee Bob McElwee.  It was apparent today though that I was starting to grow weary of his tales of his 30 plus years as an official, as I fell asleep for most of the presentation.  Either that, or I had one too many banana martinis the night before.  Now that I was well rested, I rounded Colleen up and decided that we should strengthen our relationship by taking part in a Nintendo Wii bowling competition.  Unfortunately, about 50 other old-age pensioners had the same idea that morning.  Shit, I didn't even know that most of these people knew that computers had been invented and here they were lining up for a virtual bowling competition! 

Deciding that the competition was too fierce, the old ball and chain and I decided to head on over to another part of the ship to play Wheel of Fortune.  Despite the fact that it was not as strenuous as Wii bowling, the event was nonetheless hotly contested by all the living fossils involved.  My personal highlight (I'm kind of a big deal) came when we were given a category entitled "Kevin Spacey Movies".  Two words. First word, eight letters. Second word, six letters.  Thinking I had solved it, when Horrible Bosses sprung in to my head, I triumphantly shot my hand in to the air like a champ.  Then I was told I was wrong.  "But, but, but, that's a Kevin Spacey movie that fits the board," I argued.  I was told NO DICE! and that I was wrong.  To say I was heartbroken would be an understatement.  Alas, the answer was American Beauty.  Colleen and I walked away from the game show feeling defeated and as if I had just been robbed of my rightful first-place prize; a cruise card holder.  One day I would win my card holder, one day!

Feeling as if my life could get no worse following my game show debacle, I decided to again try my luck in one of the poker tournaments.  Not wanting to break my streak, I again finished outside of the money and after net losses approaching $350 at the poker tables for the cruise so far, decided that my time and money would be better spent elsewhere.  One said place was the pool, where I languished away the remainder of the afternoon before dinner wallowing in my multiple losses that day. 

That night, Mother Nature decided yet again that she felt the need to punish our ship for whatever sins it had committed upon her or possibly Brother Nature (sorry, I had to).  With Colleen retired to the stateroom, myself and one of my dinner friends, Bob, were sitting around and chatting when out of nowhere the entire ship tilted off to one side.  As one could imagine, this was quickly followed by the sounds of breaking dishes in the back of the restaurant and startled people everywhere.  Figuring that the boat would quickly correct itself, Bob and I stayed put and continued on chatting.  After a couple minutes passed, the boat was still on its side and Mr. Bob went in to panic mode. Seeing as how Bob was now frightened, I surmised that I should probably head back to the cabin and make sure Colleen was not overboard.  Thankfully, the wifey was still alive, although our cabin was definitely taking on a different feel with it being tilted by about 25 degrees.  Colleen and I decided to go to some of the lower decks and check out what was going on, and as was par for the course, we were greeted by ferocious winds and hurricane style rains.  With the boat still tilted on its side, we eventually decided to head back to bed, although sleeping wasn't nearly as comfortable with Colleen on top of me instead of beside me (don't think sick thoughts you perverts!).

~Brentski~

*Note: We learned the next day from other passengers and crew that the reason the ship listed to one side was because we were struck by a freak 100 mile per hour wind gust.  At this time, they apparently had to shut the ship's engines down, hence why we were forced to live in "Sideways World" for a while.  No idea if this is 100% accurate, but we were still alive afterwards and that's all that mattered to me!