Dead Robot

A tame version of one of the many

How was my trip?

Before I start I just want to say that I’m going to write some seriously scathing things about a group of people in a broad and general manner. I do so in 99% jest. I do so because it happened to us almost every time we came in contact with this particular group of people. I do so because these fuckers nearly ruined a perfectly good vacation.

If you belong to that group of people I’m going to mention, if you have an open mind and you find yourself amused (hopefully), then we’re cool. If you’re from that group and you’re pissed, fuck off.

My trip was great except for the roving packs of New Jerseians that seem to not understand the concept of decorum or social graces. There. I said it. I officially hate most of the population of New Jersey. I know this hate-on for a single state of people is probably shared with quite a few New Yorkers, but it’s new to me. I’ve not been exposed to this kind of rabble before. Nor do I think I wish to do so ever again.

Why this sudden slamming closed of my open mind? I’ll start at the beginning, shall I?

SharkBoy and I get to the port in Bayonne, NJ and enter the snakey line into the security screening area for the ship. As the initial excitement of getting on board faded while we stand in line for the metal detectors, I begin to notice things about the people that we’ll be sailing with on the 3300 passenger ship:

1. Everyone is grossly obese. I’ll talk about that later.
2. The majority of the crowd was well over 55. This wasn’t so much a problem for socialization as it was for mobilization. Often during the trip we found ourselves behind slow moving flesh mounds that didn’t seem to care that they just walked in front of two guys who could manage a human normal gait. This usually happened in line for the gangplank or the buffet.
3. And finally, I begin to notice a lot of sweat pants. A LOT of SWEATPANTS. I use to think that air travel was a great time to dress up in presentable clothes but in the last few flights I’ve had, I’ve been seeing sweatpants on travellers with increasing dismay. Imagine my horror when I started to see sweatpants on travellers that should be wearing sport jackets and ascots and jaunty hats.

Actually, there was one couple in their upper 70s who did dress like they were going on the QEII but we didn’t see them nearly enough. They arrived at port wearing pink, her in pink furs and he in a pink leisure suit. I would have loved to be sitting at their table every night just to see the 30 year old Bob Mackie gowns. These two were the exception. The rest of the ship dressed like they were going to fix cars or watch Monster Truck rallies or fix Monster Trucks.

My fantasy of fine travel dashed across the rocky shore of plebeian fashion.

The outfit of choice for the men were “World’s Greatest Dad!” or “…Grampa!” t-shirts that barely contained their medicine ball sized guts. There were a couple 9-11 firefighter memorial t-shirts (worn ironically because they looked like they couldn’t carry a single axe without a stroke) but for the most part, the men all had that look that their wives dressed them using the finest polycotton pulled from seconds bins from WallMart. Most men had a look of long suffering or dour disposition etched into their faces, as if their wives, work and life in general had pulled their cheeks down all these years.

The women were cankel-riffic. Post-children obesity was rampant with the ladies on our cruise. By Day 3 I had decided that they were all part of the “Titanic Tits” set. We’re talking G cups that rested like deflating dirigibles atop of fleshy mounds of c-section scars. These ladies were partying like they were 16 again and many had shrill voices that could cut titanium. Mostly yelling at their husbands to get them more food from some buffet.

“Why Dead Robot! How can you hate someone based on their body size when you yourself are 40lbs overweight?” I hear you sputter.

I don’t fart on elevators.

A few times we entered an elevator that had been gassed. One New Jersian did right in front of me. Unapologetic, she let one rip and then without even a bat of an eyelash. Then she straightened the back of her t-shirt across her polyester-wrapped, newly relaxed ass. She walked off the elevator without a look back or “HA! Got you!” Nothing.

I don’t talk with food in my mouth.

One lunch SharkBoy shared a table with two couples: a mother/daughter combo who, after a few moments of conversation, we dubbed the daughter “Basement Girl” because it was evident with her constant announcements that she just bought the DVD of House on Amazon.com on Black Friday, that she didn’t get out much. The other couple maybe had 5 teeth total between them. At one point all four of them had spat food from their mouth as they complained about their TIVOs working improperly. But Basement Girl won the Oscar for Most Dramatic Performance of Spitting Out What Isn’t Mozzarella Cheese At All. One taste of the offensive cheese and she wanted all of us to know that her dear mom had tried to poison her with Brie cheese with napkin and gagging sounds. Pleasant! Meanwhile the other couple at the table just spat food from their yaws as they complained that they didn’t “get” The Office.

I don’t let myself get so morbidly obese I can’t raise my leg further than my knee.

At one excursion to a secluded beach, one of the Titanic Tits ladies got herself hip deep into the ocean only to find that the 2ft drop off past the surf break meant that she was trapped, unable to raise her bloated ham sized feet higher than her mid thigh. The weight of her gargantuan flesh would make the sand shift under her as she tried to get her foot high enough above the drop off. She eventually got herself into a sitting position and hauled herself up over the drop off and shimmied her ass most of the way back to shore. Not pretty. Quite embarrassing to watch but fascinating at the same time.

I can hold onto a conversation even if it means going down to the base level of discussing the weather.

Each breakfast or lunch that SharkBoy and I had in the main dining room meant that we were randomly sat at a large table with other shipmates. At every sitting we managed to get a few New Jersians with us and they never once started conversations with us. Did they know we were homosex lovers and could not bear to start a conversation with us? Or were they just socially inept that they couldn’t start a pleasant talk? I may be paranoid but I think it was a healthy dose of both. In every instance, SharkBoy instigated discussions with a deflating “This is my husband! I suck his cock nightly!”

No. He didn’t. But you could imagine my fantasy of that: To watch the table devolve into pandemonium, screaming and “Oh my lord!!”-isms. No this only happened in my head when the awkward silence we had to endure so many times during a meal suddenly loomed over the table. Sure I could have started some pleasant chit chat but I can only badmouth weather (something so out of our own control) for so long.

I don’t complain about everything under the sun for the sake of complaining.

On one excursion two heffers heaved their fat asses into the bus that would take us up the side of a mountain to see twin waterfalls of Trafalgar. The first thing out of the husband’s mouth was a long loud rant to the driver about how dirty the windows were. They weren’t, in fact, dirty at all. They had slight dew stains and dust but they were still viewable. Not that you wanted to see the edge of the road that led up that mountain. Yikes. This is only one example of the constant flow of complaints. As we walked the halls or swam in the pools we were privy to many conversations that compared the ship, the food, the weather, the floorboards to other places that were so much better than where we all were at that moment. After 12 days I am convinced that New Jersians like to complain about anything at all.

I know how to behave in a restaurant.

We had one nice dinner in the smaller restaurant on the ship called Portofino’s – extra charge is expected and there is a strict suit and tie dress code. There is one waiter per table so the service is personal and attentive. Half way through our wonderful meal they walked in. He was about 300lbs of back street muscle stuffed into an ill-fitting suit. She was wearing a Vegas whore black dress. They sat them two tables away and we could hear her drop F-bombs like the waiter was Hiroshima. I swear I can’t recall when the word “fuck” was used as an adjective, verb and compliment all in one sentence. I knew we were in for eavesdropping gold when she couldn’t pronounce “calamari” yet that fun faded to pity as she told the waiter to just bring her a “fucking margarita”. Her conversation poured over to the table next to us when she said “I saw you getting a massage! Your face was ORGASMIC! I was all like ‘I want what she’s fucking getting!’” The restaurant literally stopped. She didn’t. Near the end of the evening (we cut our meal short), the entire room learned that they were to be married on the beach the next day in a small eloping ceremony. I placed a silent bet in my head that the husband would be banging the babysitter inside a year.

I could go on. Know that I wanted to get through this post without using the word “class” because we all know that those who mention “class” usually have none. But I’m going to do it. New Jersians have no class. They may be the hard working backbone of the Eastern Seaboard, but they’d crumble in an audience with the queen.

More later.