Cruisin'

Flirtatious: "I'll meet you aft, for an after dinner apertif, eh?"

Real Mood: Mesmerized

Prediction: The oceans are going to be around for a while.

I'm talking recently with my nephew Dan and his wife Deb about the prevalent levelers in our society.  I had just been to COSTCO to get some digital film put on a CD.

While searching for any spot to park our RAV 4, I pull up behind a new Jaguar, (It's so nice to just have to type it and not get in that battle over how one should pronounce Jaguar) whose drive person is causing a massive traffic jam because she thinks someone might pull out of the spot in front of her.

Meantime another drive type in a 20 year old Chevy Nova (with only one headlight) pulls up behind me and starts honking. Nova Person thinks it's me holding up the line and he wants that parking place too.

The point here is with all our diversity, economic and otherwise, we've all came to the same place looking for the same thing. Sure we're looking for a parking place, but we're also looking for BARGAINS.

Regardless of our relative stations in life we're buying the same TVs, the same muffins, the same Sonic Care tooth brushes. We come from all races, all religions, all nationalities, all sexes, all ages and somehow tolerate each other.

Educators and politicians LOOKING for promotable diversity Programs? Why, you oughta put aside all that book learnin' , them focus groups, and them lab studies, and take the short hop down to COSTCO or Walmart or Home Depot or Sam's Club.  I don't think Sam Walton planned it that way, but hey if it works?

Since that conversation and experience, I've been trying to be cognizant of  other accidental levelers I might see around me. Little did I think I would run into one last week as we boarded a cruise ship in New Orleans.  You take one look at the picture I took from shore in Cozumel and you're telling me, "you're out of your mind."  But I'm not. For the record I do not, nor will I ever be in the employ of, or associated with, or contracted to speak for any cruise line for money. This one is for free.

You listen to ads for the great gambling meccas like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. They're saying , "bring the whole family. There's something here for everybody."  You're saying bull what?   I'm going to ease back into this and just leave this as a teaseuntil tommorrow. I have some really fun things to tell you about cruise ships. Hasta manana. (there is no tilde on AOL)

So I didn't want to let this get sappy.  It's never where I want to go...so that's why I let it sit a while. So let's pick up with "there is something here on board for everybody." From what I saw, felt, smelled, touched and tasted I don't think I could argue about that claim on a cruise ship.

So who is everybody? Get stuck at the international terminal at Heathrow Airport and you get the picture.  Or you can hop on the Carnival Sensation from New Orleans to Cozumel and back and you'll get the picture. So there are 2500 passengers and about a thousand crew.  Let's start with the crew. They come  from 80 countries and very few from the U.S. While there is clearly a set pecking order,  most of them seem to get along. And that's not something you can hide very well when you're all sitting in the middle of an ocean.

Let's talk age. I'm chatting with one of my doctors this week who says he and his wife are talking cruise, but they're holding up until their daughters get older. "Don't Wait!"  I think it's so cool to be sitting at a black jack table and watch a string of five year olds march by, with their faces all painted up, all smiling and singing nursery rhymes. Try that in Vegas and someone will be in jail.

Diversity? I saw, met and chatted with someone from every known race, religion, age group, political  grouping, special interest, sexual orientation, economic status, and a whole bunch of other categories that instantly become unimportant. Why does it work? 

I spend some portion of my internet time trying to find out where cliches and sayings allegedly orginate. (At some level History is always just a guess) Well here's one cliche I'm going to use now, and look up later.

 "It works because we are all in the same boat." What's the option to not getting along?  Not many people survive getting tossed in the briny.  Better to take a deep breath and say, "let's work this out, what do you say?"  And on this ship I see a lot of this.

I see some well imbibed 20 something men getting pumped up for grossosity. They are making many a testosterone comment to passing 20 somethings of another gender.  Just when it looks like they are going to take it to the top,  a couple walksby. It's a couple in their 70's who likely resemble their own grand parents. You just don't talk like that around Granny or GranPopsi, do you?

It's an irony that we talk about being isolated on a ship. Isolation is where you are seperated from the things around you. On a big ship nothing happens in isolation. Even in your own state room you soon discover you're not alone. Go ahead and say it but remember ships are not soundproof.

Well I could babble about this for a long time but you may already be bored. Just let me add that one ship, 14 stories tall, and the length of three football fields, has only one shuffle board court. And I never saw anyone use it.

I don't know why I'm writing all this.  I'm starting to think all of you have already been on one of these cruise things. Well?