R.J. Morgan
Starkville, MS
Last week I took a Carnival cruise to Mexico with my family.
Now this may sound like a fantastic, relaxing spectacle until you realize that it’s a Carnival cruise to Mexico… with my family.
First, there’s my parents, who listen to Bluegrass music en masse and like to congratulate each other on the small things in life like finding the cheapest gas.
Especially my dad, who is, well… a budgeter. Some misguided souls might call him cheap. He borrows internet from the neighbors, drops ESPN from his satellite package in the offseason, and plays free Tetris on his prepaid TracFone. A true man of the world.
My mom is a smothering sort who doesn’t mind at all interrupting the natural flow of any event in order to ask everyone to stop and face the camera for a picture. She does this so that (theoretically) we may on some distant date, after she’s long gone, come across that picture and remember fondly the very event she kept us from enjoying.
Then there’s my younger sister and her husband, who are weeks away from moving to Memphis and starting new jobs, stressed to the gills with the growing weights of adulthood. My brother-in-law Josh is an artist, a sculptor. Very talented. My sister’s artistic talents manifest themselves in much subtler ways, like garage sale posters or elaborate signatures on credit card receipts.
And so the five of us set out toward New Orleans (and eventually Mexico) like five characters in some modern Twain tale.
For those uneducated about life aboard a cruise ship, there is food. Lots and lots of food. One Carnival cruise ship could easily feed the entire starving populations of Burundi and Malawi, with enough leftover to support at least one Baldwin brother.
Buffets for breakfast. Buffets for lunch. And – since this was a Gulf of Mexico cruise – Jimmy Buffett performing live on an oil derrick.
On the Lido Deck, I witnessed one young lady who had to be physically detained for hoarding a bucket of sausage-stuffed calamari fritters and fending off security with a plastic crab zipper. I just shook my head at the scene and returned to my chocolate and mango sushi.
At sea there are different terms for everything. Port and Starboard mean left and right, Forward and Aft mean front and back, etc. I realized this lingo was dangerous in the hands of Southerners when a guy from Auburn nudged me one day at a bar by the pool and asked me if I was “checking out the aft on the girl in the orange bikini.”
My dad, in over 2,300 passengers, found and befriended an elderly hippie from right here in Starkville. He and his wife were celebrating their 40th anniversary and renewed their vows aboard the ship. My parents both agreed that after forty years, a more proper vacation would be separate cruises.
In Cozumel, Amanda and Josh went snorkeling. Both are whiter than an albino Eskimo, so it surprised no one when they returned to the ship looking like honorary members of the Aztec Nation.
I spent my own time in port seeking out some of the finer things the natives had to offer: golden margaritas, a silver chain necklace, and sweet-smelling Cuban tobacco. All duty free and of the highest quality. One simply would not believe the deal I negotiated for these wares.
But like even the finest of siestas at even the finest of cantinas, the adventure had to end.
By the time we returned on Saturday, Mom had digitally documented three quarters of the ship and was declared Ship Champion in Speed-Sudoku. My sister purchased several pieces of art, none of which impressed her husband, who was too busy nursing a water blister that boiled over like Old Faithful every 37 minutes. (I timed it!)
Dad left the ship with half a dozen new friends and quite proud of himself for achieving the high score on Tetris. I haven’t the heart to tell him that he’s playing only himself and the previous high score was his from last week. He’s happier this way.
As for myself, I declared three street-grade Mexican cigars and a green necklace, cursing the damned Mexicans all the way home.
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