I didn't understand how somebody could be so inappropriate at someone's parents' house. I had been Emily Post's alter ego when visiting Nathan's parents and never so much as swore in front of them, never mind consuming an entire bottle of tequila with no mixer. I proceeded to go off on him for close to five minutes, then grabbed my little cousin, took a hit of his joint, and started back up the stairs. I told Nathan he was not allowed out for the rest of the night, to which he inquired, "What about my lobster?" I went to our table, grabbed his plate with the lobster, and while descending the steps into the basement, took the lobster and threw it at him. He responded with a scream that sounded very similar to a cat getting gangbanged.
He woke up the next morning on the front lawn to my father spraying a hose on him.
"You're going to miss your flight," my father said. I was still so incensed at Nathan's behavior that I had Greg take him to the airport four hours early. When my brother returned, he announced to everyone in our living room with a huge grin on his face, "Well, have no fear, it looks like Robert Downey Junior got off without a hitch. We'll have to tune in to the local news later and see if his plane lands safely or if he ends up hijacking it."
"Shut up," I said. "He's not usually like that."
"I think we can all agree that Chelsea should not be allowed to bring anyone else back to any family gathering unless they are engaged to be married." My brother knew the chances of me getting engaged were about as probable as me releasing a hip-hop album.
My mother looked up from playing with my niece and said, "I think Greg is right, sweetheart. I think maybe when we have you all to ourselves it's more fun." My mother always put a spin on things to make it sound like every decision was based on how amazing you were to be around. I didn't want to bring anyone back there again, anyway. There was too much abuse from my siblings and father to endure another tandem vacation.
"You should really think about the company you keep," my father said. "You've got a real soft spot for lunatics. You're a beautiful girl, and I'd hate to see that figure go to waste."
OVERBOARD
DUMB DUMB ASKED me if I wanted to go on a cruise for New Year's Eve. I had never been on an ocean journey before and was hesitant because Dumb Dumb was about as much fun as a lawn bowling tournament. Her idea of a good time was going to California Pizza Kitchen and ordering two appetizers instead of one. But in my never-ending mission to get her twenty-eight-year-old hymen popped, I agreed.
"Just you and me will go," she said.
"No fucking way," I said. "I'm inviting Ivory and Lydia too."
"Fine," she said, "but they're not going to want to come with me."
She was right. Lydia and Ivory both told me they'd rather spend New Year's Eve at a Michael Bolton concert and that I was an idiot for having agreed to go in the first place. Upon hearing their totally rational refusals, I rethought my decision and tried to weasel my way out of the deal by telling Dumb Dumb I had a great opportunity to feed the homeless on New Year's and would have to cancel. An hour later I found Dumb Dumb crying in her room. I hate when people cry, especially when it's my fault, so not only did I agree to go with her, I ended up paying her way. Now who's the dumb dumb? I thought.
Right from the start, Dumb Dumb was way too excited about this trip. It's all she talked about for the next three weeks. She went on and on about the fun we were gonna have and all the hot men we would meet. I made her promise to at least let someone feel her boobs or I would tell everyone on board that she was still a virgin.
"You better not!" she yelled. "I'd kill you! Do you think I'll meet someone? Do you think I will? What if I meet my husband on the cruise ship? It's going to be so romantic!"
She would put on one fashion show after another in our apartment, modeling sarongs and different bikini tops.
"What do you think? Do you like the sarong with the polka dots or the one with the sun signs?"
She was exhausting. I was dreading this stupid cruise more than I had dreaded DUI school. It didn't help that Lydia and Ivory had made plans to go away to Aspen on a ski trip with Hugh Grant.
On her final runway walk, she modeled a bikini top with something that looked very similar to a pair of Dolphin shorts that were two sizes too small. If she walked around in that, I'd have to start calling her "Camel Toe."
"Listen, Camel Toe, I mean Dumb Dumb," I explained, "there are going to be a lot of opportunities on this cruise for you to meet someone, so I want you to prepare some conversation topics to bring up."
"I know how to talk to people, Chelsea," she responded.
This couldn't be farther from the truth. The only people Dumb Dumb could relate to were children and slow adults. And unless someone had watched every episode of The Bachelor, or TLC's A Wedding Story, Dumb Dumb was stumped for talking points. She watched reality shows over and over, and not just the original episodes but also reruns of the same episodes, and if TiVo didn't record something she had already seen, she would call her father to ask if he could somehow fix it from New Jersey. I had seen The Bachelor once and decided I wanted to do my own version of the show. It would involve me having sex with all the contestants and then eliminating them based on their penis size. Then, during my rose ceremony, I would wear some shimmery satin Nicole Miller design, preferably in eggplant, and I would say, "Leroy, Tyrone, and Jamal, will you accept these rose?"
I was not looking forward to this trip at all, and the closer we got to New Year's the better everyone else's plans sounded. "It's gonna be amazing, we're gonna meet so many guys," Dumb Dumb would say, ad nauseam.
"Shut up, already! You act like we're going to a man park. If you have high expectations you're only going to be disappointed," I told her. I had very low expectations and felt as if I was definitely going to be disappointed. Plus, I didn't know if I could handle this much alone time with Dumb Dumb. Her earnestness brought out a frightening violent side of me. I would try hard not to yell at her, but it was a constant challenge and I had never been stuck with her for more than a couple hours straight.
"Guess what? You are going to die!" Dumb Dumb exploded. She had just gotten back from the travel agent with our tickets. "It's a booze cruise and we're going to Ensenada!"
I was hoping I would never visit Ensenada again. It's not a place you need to see twice. I had been there a few years before on some overnight adventure with two guys I met at a bar the same night, and I remembered not eating for twenty-four hours. The whole city smelled bad and I'm not a big fan of buying blankets and parkas that have been lying on the pavement. I didn't understand the Mexicans' mentality and wondered how they could be so close to civilization and yet not know about the hard taco shell.
"It's a booze cruise!" she wailed again.
"You don't even drink," I reminded her.
"Well, I will if it's a booze cruise. This is gonna be the most fun ever!"
I excused myself to my room and called my mother in a panic.
I explained to my mother that if I continued along my path of despair, I knew I would end up hurting Dumb Dumb either mentally or, more likely, physically. I also admitted to being a part-time smoker and that I would be forced to take it up more seriously if forced to vacation with Dumb Dumb. My mother told me that life isn't always about pleasing yourself and that sometimes you have to do things for the sole benefit of another human being. I completely agreed with her, but reminded her that that was what blow jobs were for. She said that Dumb Dumb was a twenty-eight-year-old virgin who was looking at this like the vacation of a lifetime, and that I needed to have a positive attitude rather than sulk and think nasty thoughts. It was curious to me that my mother could have such wise insights, but when finding a joint in my room years earlier blurted out, "Oh this is just fantastic. So now you're smoking cigarettes?" My mother went on to say how fortunate I was to have been exposed to so much and that I should support people who were less cultured. My mom made it sound like I was a debutante who had just been accepted to the Sorbonne and that Dumb Dumb had b
een born on the New Jersey Turnpike. I liked this inference and decided to adopt a new attitude.
It's funny how things work. If you pretend to be excited about something you're not looking forward to, eventually you will start to believe it. Within days, I was on an absolute high talking about the adventures we would have on board our cruise ship. I didn't even blink when I heard Dumb Dumb mention that we would be sailing on the Carnival Cruise line. "Sounds great!" I said with my teeth tightly clenched; I was not going to allow myself to say anything negative about the cruise line or that maniac, Kathy Lee Gifford.
I started imagining all the ballrooms there would be for me to model my new Roberto Cavalli shoes in. I had no dress to wear with them, but I hoped to find something at Express. I pictured a wonderfully romantic episode of The Love Boat. I would be on the Lido Deck late one starry night in an evening gown looking for the Big Dipper, when a Leonardo DiCaprio look-alike would come up and take me from behind. We would be on the bow and spread our arms out to the sea, and I would yell, "You are the king of the world!"
And who knew what kind of exciting outdoor activities they had? Everyone had told me about all the amazing food on cruises; I couldn't wait to gorge myself on rack of lamb and fresh lobster. Dumb Dumb asked me if I thought they caught the fish right out of the ocean and then served it on board that night. "Probably," I responded. "It seems like the most logical thing to do."
I believed in this cruise and knew it was going to be fun. I daydreamed about all the different love connections that would be made on different floors of our ship. People in and out of cabin doors in the wee hours of the night, walking down the plush red carpets, while upstairs in the Grand Ballroom I would be closing down the dance floor with my new Leo look-alike to a covered rendition of Carly Simon's "Give Me All Night."
Dumb Dumb even agreed to buy a book for the cruise-- something she could read while we were lying out in between pool dips. We went to a Barnes and Noble, where I picked up an unauthorized biography of M. C. Hammer, and not wanting to overload her on her first book, I steered Dumb Dumb toward a Choose Your Own Adventure.
The cruise was a four-day, three-night voyage that left from Long Beach and returned on New Year's Day. The morning of the cruise we needed to check in at the dock at nine A.M. I had been in such high spirits leading up to the trip that it was no problem for me to get up at seven-thirty to be there on time, sporting my amazing new attitude while doing so. I was rethinking my whole approach to this game they called Life. Maybe Dumb Dumb was not so stupid after all. Happiness is a choice. I had only just begun preaching my new belief system to Ivory and Lydia, who suddenly and inexplicably stopped speaking to me.
When we got to the dock, we went to Customs and showed our identification. As if loads of Americans were illegally trying to immigrate to Mexico. We checked our bags and got on line with some of our fellow passengers. Judging from the looks of them, it was clear that they were members of a different income bracket from the people I preferred to surround myself with. But since I also wasn't from the income bracket I preferred, I held off on voicing my initial feelings of despair. I was going to give this cruise my best shot. I pointed to a guy standing at the end of the line. "That guy was just totally checking you out," I lied.
"Really?" she asked. "Where?"
"Over there, over there." I pointed again. She saw him.
"He's not even that cute," was her reply. He wasn't that cute, but she was no Miss New Jersey either, so I was surprised at her laissez-faire attitude. I hoped she wasn't thinking about dabbling in my pool of men. I had been at this game awhile and knew my male equivalence. She obviously didn't realize that you needed to stay within realistic boundaries. Dumb Dumb had a few extra pounds on her and, as far as I could tell, wasn't in any hurry to lose them. She wasn't fat, but she wasn't going to be exposing her belly in a half shirt anytime soon without people quickly looking away.
"Well, someone seems to be very picky there, missy," I said.
"I have a good feeling about this cruise," she told me. "I just know I'm going to meet someone."
I knew there was a better chance of me giving birth to a penguin than Dumb Dumb meeting her soul mate aboard this cruise ship, but my new loving heart prevailed. My main focus was going to be getting her penetrated, or at least fondled. My second objective would be getting myself penetrated. My mother had convinced me that I was a giver, and though I had my doubts, I took on my new role with pride.
As we walked the plank to board the vessel, that pride made a quick exit and I started to get the feeling you get right after a bad batch of sushi: nausea, not unlike sea sickness, but this was more of a visceral disgust. This boat was a fucking mess. The feculent aroma coming from what I could only conjecture was the carpet was a smell I had experienced once before when waking up in a bar. The carpets had some horrible psychedelic design that appeared to be silk-screened on top in a fruitless attempt to cover the wide assortment of stains.
Some of the crew members were wearing blue shirts with the Carnival logo on them and some crew members were just wearing their own clothing with a name tag and a Carnival Cruise pin. Some had their shirts tucked in, some didn't. The crew looked completely disinterested, almost mentally off somehow, and there were framed photographs on the wall of more disinterested employees, all of which were crooked. Most of the crew members didn't even look eighteen. I began to have serious concerns about the kind of operation they were running.
Dumb Dumb grabbed my arm and said, "Let's just go to our room, we have a suite." I couldn't respond because I was still in a state of shock, overwhelmed by a disgust that can only be associated with deep disappointment or a keen sense of smell.
We went to our cabin, which meant hiking up four flights of stairs and down a hallway that was barely wide enough to fit one person--who was walking sideways. Where was this piece of shit boat when they were filming The Love Boat? We opened our door to find a pair of bunk beds and a porthole with glass so thick it was impossible to decipher whether the blue on the other side was the ocean or the sky.
"Is that our ocean view?" I asked Dumb Dumb as I tripped over the threshold. Apparently, we were moving.
"Oh, my gosh," she said. "This is pretty bad." She started to laugh. I did not.
"I can't stay here," I said. "I can't do it."
"It's not that bad," she said. "We can't leave. The ship has already left the dock."
"We'll have to swim to shore," I told her.
"Stop it! It'll be like a great big adventure!" she said.
I needed to find Captain Stubing right away--and Isaac and the doc. Where was that coked-up whore, Julie? Those were my peeps. I wanted to stay in their big, grand bedrooms with king-sized beds and a maid service.
After I regained my composure, I realized it was time to formulate a plan. Step one was to start drinking immediately. I was always more logical when I drank. Step two was to devise a means of escape.
We dropped our bags and I went to the bathroom to check in with myself. The bathroom was about four feet by four feet with a toilet that you had to step over to get into the shower. I stared intently at this absurd setup, trying to figure out where to put my legs while peeing as there were only about two inches between the front of the toilet and the bathroom wall. I opted to put my feet in the shower as I sat sideways on the toilet seat. I called Dumb Dumb in so she could witness what this cruise was really about.
"Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! How are we supposed to go to the bathroom?" she asked.
"Is this your fucking suite} This is what I paid nine hundred dollars for?"
"I am so sorry. I'll pay for my end. You don't have to pay for me," she said.
"Good. I'd like it in cash," I told her.
We left our "suite" to go check out the ship and get some drinks in us. Dumb Dumb picked up an activities pamphlet, which informed us that the casino would open as soon as we left the California border. Things were looking up. Gambling was a favorite pastime of mine, and combined wi
th being on water, memories of my favorite movie, Porky's, flooded into my brain. We went to exchange our money for gambling chips and waited on line behind a woman who was wearing two fanny packs around her waist and missing a front tooth.
After that, we made our way up to the Lido Deck, where we checked out the pool situation and got some drinks at the bar. There was a man sitting at the bar with hair down to his waist and wearing cutoff black jeans. The problem with his hair was that the better part of his head was bald, and the long stringy hair that remained was coming from behind his ears.
I went up to the only bald man with split ends I had ever seen and asked him how to get a drink around here.
"I'll get it for you," he replied.
"Do you work here?" I asked.
"Sometimes," was his response.
Dumb Dumb grimaced, but I pressed on. "I'll take a Ketel One with anything. Two of them."
"Where's the pool?" I asked our bartender. He pointed behind us toward a circular tank that looked like something out of Sea World, except it had no water and was covered with a decorative red, white, and blue tarp. "Is that it?" I asked him.
"That's one of 'em. There's about four more all over, but it's off season so they're all closed up."
"Off season?" asked Dumb Dumb.
"Yes ma'am. November to February," he said as he handed us our drinks in plastic Dixie cups.
"Now do you want to swim to shore?" I asked Dumb Dumb.
We thanked Split Ends for our drinks before I realized they were made out of cheap vodka and Kool-Aid, which Dumb Dumb of course loved, because it reminded her of nursery school.
There was no one else on the Lido Deck, so we made our way down a couple of decks. When I spotted my third mullet, I told Dumb Dumb that we should just go back to our rooms and sleep.
"We should at least lie out," she said.
"It's not even sixty degrees out," I told her.
"That's when you get the best color," she told me.