Dear czar of husbandry, heretofore referred to as mom,
This contract serves as a legally binding agreement contingent upon signatures from both client Zack Eliasz and provider of husband, Mom. On the date of July somethingth Mom and Zack discussed the embarkation on a seven day cruise to the Caribbean in which Zack would be provided with a husband kind, handsome, well off, important and also presumably Jewish. This contract, if signed by both parties serves as a guarantee that an ample supply of single gay men with the above qualities will be provided on the boat and Zack will remain on the ship within reasonable proximity of the family at most times or never, whatever is more convenient. If at any time mom is unable to provide said husband material client Zack will be entitled to a second trip to Italy where he will surely be able to find a husband or at the very least buy a leather jacket and eat gelato. Please do not fax this message back to the number where it came from, which is the Staples on Wabash.
Fine print aside this vacation could not have come a better time. At work I caught a glimpse of the schedule for the next month and I wasn't on it. I knew this was coming, hotel renovations, slow months, I was getting laid off. Which for a server in a city like Chicago isn't really that big of a deal. Most servers will find another job in less than a month. Which is why I don't necessarily understand how so many people are unemployed because the refuse to carry plates of food for a living. Getting laid off wasn't upsetting reason of unemployment. This year I had basically lost everything, everything except for my job. The job has been the one stable thing for me this whole year and just the as the year was coming to an end I was going to lose it. I had no time to mourn or write self pitying song lyrics, I had a flight to catch so I hopped in a cab to ORD with my dreams and my cardigan.
If you've never been to Ohare or any airport in a major city during Christmas time let me paint the picture for you. A somewhat savvy passenger arrives three hours early for the very first flight and thinks that he'll beat the rush. This supposedly savvy passenger doesn't realize that everyone else in Chicago had the same idea. The traveler tries to put himself in the right mindset, this is but a long pilgrimage to the holy land of the Crown Princess cruise ship, where he will be showered with husbands. At first the check in line doesn't seem so bad. It's long, but moves quickly, until he realizes he's at international check-in and has to start over from the beginning in another line, twice as long, and with three times as many babies. As he approaches the economy domestic line he vows never to fly coach again. Imagine an enormous long twisting snake that has devoured every loud crying foaming at the mouth baby in the world, then the snake ate about a thousand asian tourists, then about two hundred teenagers playing Miley Cyrus and singing along, then a person in a blue vest tells him to get in the snake's mouth after all those annoying people and wait for a hundred years for the snake to digest and poop him out directly into the mouth of another long serpentine line that will tease him after an hour wait when he finally gets his ticket signed by the TSA and thinks he's to the security scanner he finds out he's only halfway through. Our traveller is weary now, not sure he'll make it to the promised land. He us undressed, scanned, prodded, barefoot, scurrying to get his clothes on. When he finally arrives at the gate his mother is waiting, sipping an iced mocha, asking,
"What took you so long? We've been waiting forever."
Our weary traveller points to a beacon of hope.
"Starbucks? What do you want?"
"Double grande nonfat dirty chai with no water."
"I'm getting you a coffee."
Our traveller is too weary to protest.
Our flight took us through Houston where we caught a shuttle to Galveston. At the shuttle a bunch of men in tropical shirts put our luggage on carts and hauled them away. They told us not to worry our bags would be at the room before we were. At first I was a little alarmed, mostly because of the lack of uniforms. I was expecting fancy porters in polyester hotel uniforms. Did these people even work for the cruise line or was this some elaborate ruse to make off with my shoes? Everything about this trip was so disorienting. Some random lady holding a sign huddled a bunch of us together at the airport and shoved us on an unmarked bus. I was pretty sure we were being sold into white slavery at that point. The amount of faith you have to have in people and logistics for these cruise vacations is astounding. Random people with no nametags take your bags and put you on strange vehicles. Is this what it felt like to be a tourist, completely at the mercy of people and procedures you were clueless about.
In the embarkment line I scoped out potential husbands. The crowd was disappointing at best. It was nothing but families and giant swarms of asians.
"Mom I don't see my husband anywhere in this line."
"He's probably already on the boat."
"Wait why aren't we in that line?" I indicated the line for suites that was mostly empty.
"Oh we're in staterooms." Silence. "But I did get you a balcony." More silence. "Don't make that face at me."
"Well, now I know why my husband isn't in this line, he surely has a penthouse suite."
"It's a boat, there is no penthouse."
"Whatever the boat equivalent is."
"So see, he's probably already boarded and at the bar waiting to buy you a drink. Oh look there's a gay!" The way she said it I thought she had spotted a parrot or howler monkey or something.
"He works for the cruise line!"
"So?"
"They don't count, everyone in hospitality is gay."
After we were finally though the boarding line our first of many novelty photo ops were presented. A fake tropical backdrop where families could take a picture together for a ridiculous fee.
"I don't understand, why would anybody going to the caribbean want a picture with a fake palm tree. Wont we be standing in front of the real thing in two days?"
At this point I was pretty skeptical about this trip. So far I was unimpressed, and was pretty sure I was going to fall victim to an outbreak of norovirus. However, some of my skepticism was alleviated once we actually boarded the ship. It was pretty much my dream realized. Let's take the tour. (Feel free to skip this paragraph if you understand just how ridiculous these cruise ships are)
From the boarding area you walk up a flight of stairs the the three story piazza with a sushi and wine bar, a cafe with unlimited (and free I might add) pastries and baked goods, there's two dining rooms on this floor and a movie theater. One floor up is a speakeasy cigar lounge and casino, stores and a martini bar, on the next floor there's a pub and library with an internet cafe. At this point I should mention that no matter where you are on the boat if you sit down or even stand still for too long a staff member will rush over and offer you a beverage. You can basically order anything anywhere on the boat. There's an art gallery past the library where you can bid on works by mostly unknown painters, then there is a steakhouse and a little further back a lounge bar with live music then another restaurant. This is just the center of the boat. There's about ten floors of staterooms and suites with free room service, and a pretty cheap laundry service. On the top floor is a spa and gym, private sanctuary pool with cabanas, an italian restaurant, and yet another bar. There's another nightclub at the very front of the ship that overlooks the deck. One floor down are two buffets that are usually always open with little gaps between meal periods. From the buffet court you can make your way out to a back adults only pool deck or a larger pool with a movie screen that played movies all day and night. On the back pool deck live music and DJs played alternately, there was also a pizza, hot dog, burger and ice cream bar open all day right next to the pool. And lets not forget the most important part of the ship I'll never have to go to, a kids and teenager deck which acted as a holding pen to keep the other decks clear.
Suffice to say I started drinking immediately and didn't stop for seven days. For dinner we had a standing reservation every night in the Botticelli dining room staffed to the brim with attentive eastern europeans. Working in food and beverage I can appreciate how good the service on this ship was. Every worker smiles, they will do just about anything you ask them to and never give you so much as a sideways glance. You also notice really quickly on these ships that there are next to no Americans working on them. It's my theory that we don't have the same threshold for annoying tourists that europeans do. I ordered an Iced mocha on the pool deck one day, waited about 15 minutes and finally it came. I asked the waiter what took him so long, usually the drinks came back in about a minute. I found out he had to go all the way to the bottom of the piazza where the cafe was then take an elevator and stairs from the opposite end of the boat to bring the mocha to me. I had no idea, he didn't even bat an eye when I asked him or seem even a little annoyed.
The only unfortunate part of the trip was sharing a room with my sister. We actually had a decently sized closet. For one person. We seemed to have a misunderstanding about who should get all of the hangers. From my point of view all of her lacy little skimpy dresses put together didn't have as much fabric as one of my shirts. Therefore I should get all of the hangers and she should put all of her little tissue thin loincloths on one. This seemed like the only logical solution. To repay me for bogarting the closet she left a present for me in the stateroom. I came back to the room from my first margarita bender to find her in bed reading Cosmo.
"Why does it already smell bad in this room?" She looked up and shrugged. I scoured the room for the culprit. My sister is a wild uncouth animal. I was expecting to find a partially devoured animal carcass, banana peels and watermelon seeds in her sheets. I checked under the bed for any food remnants. I looked in all the trash cans. I was frustrated. Where could the smell have been coming from? Finally I gave up looking and went to grab my cologne from the bathroom to spray the room down. It was there I found the culprit. For Christmas my sister had left me a giant present in the toilet.
"Did you forget to flush the toilet you beast?" I kicked the lid down and flushed. She looked up from her magazine. "You animal! Do I look like one of your college roommates?" I tried to thrash her with a bathrobe but she apparently thought that her lump of coal was a hilarious gift and started laughing uncontrollably. "I mean what the hell were you eating? That thing was like a sea monster." I kept beating her with the towel until she ran out onto the connecting balcony and into our parent's room. When my mother heard what she had done she chased her right back out. This trip was supposed to be about luxury and pampering not pampers for my scatologically challenged sister.
And from a forgotten flush to a royal flush I decided to escape fecal captivity for some fiscal activity. I wholly intended to activate my own stimulus plan in the casino. At first I tested the waters at the poker table, however a $1/2 no limits game can add up quickly, especially when you have a bunch of ridiculous amateurs raising the pot because they think they're a high roller, when really they just don't know what they're doing. It should have been easy money but I've found that reckless poker players are just and dangerous as experienced ones. People who bluff too much and push the pot too high raise the stakes too early make it hard to discern who at the table actually does know what they're doing. After a few hands I was up but not by much and was mostly fed up with the the casino crown. It wasn't even the fun kind of tacky with old white haired ladies with fanny packs and cigarettes. It was just depressing. I stopped in the speakeasy to have a smoke and met one of the crew.
After a few sideways glances I could tell he was gay so I asked him where all the attractive men were. I figured it was a safe bet.
"Usually there are more, this crowd seems like mostly families."
"No single older Jewish men?"
"No, they all take cruises departing in Florida. In Texas it's all christians and republicans."
"What?"
"You could try the gay mixer, they meet at the martini bar in about ten minutes. Do you know where the--"
"Okay thanksbye," the second he said gay and martini in the same sentence I was gone. In ten minutes I freshened my cologne and arrived at the LGBT group in a new outfit sans underwear. I sat at the bar and ordered and Hendricks martini while scoping out the crowd. I didn't see my gays anywhere. After a minute of sipping my martini and older (I mean much older) gentleman came up and asked if I was here for the, ahem, meeting. "Yes I'm here for the gays, where are they?" The bartender giggled like she was in on the joke. He gestured to a huddle of old men in their sixties and seventies.
"We're over there."
"That's the group? The gay mixer?"
"Grab your drink and come on over."
I glanced over at the bartender, "If I had known it was gonna be like this I would have left my underwear on." She shrugged. I had no choice but to go over and join my people. I was officially one of the old men.
Over dinner I griped to my mother.
"There were three couples, all retired, all over sixty."
"Well, at least you know they're the marrying type!"
"Because they're already married! You signed a legally binding contract."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't give me that, I had my people fax it over."
"I don't have a fax machine. Just eat your flan and enjoy the fact that tomorrow we're snorkeling in Cozumel. You'll get your husband."
Since the gay group was such a bust I decided to go to the one activity that no gay man could resist, karaoke. I looked at all the teeny boppers singing various pop songs stumbling through the runs. I was going to find my gays even if I had to humiliate myself in the process. I ordered a double Drambuie at the bar. The bartender gave me a karaoke slip.
"There's one slot left, you better sign up if you want to sing."
"I'm not sure, I didn't see any show tunes in your book, those are my comfort zone. Hall and Oates maybe?"
"You'd be great! You have the mustache and everything. I'll sign you up."
"Wait--" but before I could stop him he had signed me up. And worse yet, I was the last song. I had never sang karaoke in front of this many people before, maybe asian style in a room with friends. But this was a full nightclub. When I was up I strolled on to the stage. They handed me the microphone and cued up the song. At first I was on fire, You Make My Dreams was my go-to shower song, I knew the whole first verse by heart, I wasn't even looking at the monitor, until of course I got to the second verse which I usually fudged through and mumbled in the shower. I looked up at the monitor and realized that the timing was off and lyrics were already a verse ahead. I had two choices I could grab a life vest and throw myself overboard, or I could hum and dance suggestively with the microphone stand and chime in at you make my dreams come true.
Afterwards I was devastated. If there were any gays in the audience I had certainly repelled them by bombing my international karaoke debut. That microphone stand would be the only thing I bump and grind on this trip. I took myself out for a cigarette to take the edge off.
"Can I get a light?" I heard from behind me. Wait a minute, that was the gay hello. I had found the gays, or well, I had found one of them. "You were great by the way, I love that song. Are you going up to the dance club?" He was a little awkward and boyish. But at this point I had no plans no panties and no reason to say no.
If you've never been to Ohare or any airport in a major city during Christmas time let me paint the picture for you. A somewhat savvy passenger arrives three hours early for the very first flight and thinks that he'll beat the rush. This supposedly savvy passenger doesn't realize that everyone else in Chicago had the same idea. The traveler tries to put himself in the right mindset, this is but a long pilgrimage to the holy land of the Crown Princess cruise ship, where he will be showered with husbands. At first the check in line doesn't seem so bad. It's long, but moves quickly, until he realizes he's at international check-in and has to start over from the beginning in another line, twice as long, and with three times as many babies. As he approaches the economy domestic line he vows never to fly coach again. Imagine an enormous long twisting snake that has devoured every loud crying foaming at the mouth baby in the world, then the snake ate about a thousand asian tourists, then about two hundred teenagers playing Miley Cyrus and singing along, then a person in a blue vest tells him to get in the snake's mouth after all those annoying people and wait for a hundred years for the snake to digest and poop him out directly into the mouth of another long serpentine line that will tease him after an hour wait when he finally gets his ticket signed by the TSA and thinks he's to the security scanner he finds out he's only halfway through. Our traveller is weary now, not sure he'll make it to the promised land. He us undressed, scanned, prodded, barefoot, scurrying to get his clothes on. When he finally arrives at the gate his mother is waiting, sipping an iced mocha, asking,
"What took you so long? We've been waiting forever."
Our weary traveller points to a beacon of hope.
"Starbucks? What do you want?"
"Double grande nonfat dirty chai with no water."
"I'm getting you a coffee."
Our traveller is too weary to protest.
Our flight took us through Houston where we caught a shuttle to Galveston. At the shuttle a bunch of men in tropical shirts put our luggage on carts and hauled them away. They told us not to worry our bags would be at the room before we were. At first I was a little alarmed, mostly because of the lack of uniforms. I was expecting fancy porters in polyester hotel uniforms. Did these people even work for the cruise line or was this some elaborate ruse to make off with my shoes? Everything about this trip was so disorienting. Some random lady holding a sign huddled a bunch of us together at the airport and shoved us on an unmarked bus. I was pretty sure we were being sold into white slavery at that point. The amount of faith you have to have in people and logistics for these cruise vacations is astounding. Random people with no nametags take your bags and put you on strange vehicles. Is this what it felt like to be a tourist, completely at the mercy of people and procedures you were clueless about.
In the embarkment line I scoped out potential husbands. The crowd was disappointing at best. It was nothing but families and giant swarms of asians.
"Mom I don't see my husband anywhere in this line."
"He's probably already on the boat."
"Wait why aren't we in that line?" I indicated the line for suites that was mostly empty.
"Oh we're in staterooms." Silence. "But I did get you a balcony." More silence. "Don't make that face at me."
"Well, now I know why my husband isn't in this line, he surely has a penthouse suite."
"It's a boat, there is no penthouse."
"Whatever the boat equivalent is."
"So see, he's probably already boarded and at the bar waiting to buy you a drink. Oh look there's a gay!" The way she said it I thought she had spotted a parrot or howler monkey or something.
"He works for the cruise line!"
"So?"
"They don't count, everyone in hospitality is gay."
After we were finally though the boarding line our first of many novelty photo ops were presented. A fake tropical backdrop where families could take a picture together for a ridiculous fee.
"I don't understand, why would anybody going to the caribbean want a picture with a fake palm tree. Wont we be standing in front of the real thing in two days?"
At this point I was pretty skeptical about this trip. So far I was unimpressed, and was pretty sure I was going to fall victim to an outbreak of norovirus. However, some of my skepticism was alleviated once we actually boarded the ship. It was pretty much my dream realized. Let's take the tour. (Feel free to skip this paragraph if you understand just how ridiculous these cruise ships are)
From the boarding area you walk up a flight of stairs the the three story piazza with a sushi and wine bar, a cafe with unlimited (and free I might add) pastries and baked goods, there's two dining rooms on this floor and a movie theater. One floor up is a speakeasy cigar lounge and casino, stores and a martini bar, on the next floor there's a pub and library with an internet cafe. At this point I should mention that no matter where you are on the boat if you sit down or even stand still for too long a staff member will rush over and offer you a beverage. You can basically order anything anywhere on the boat. There's an art gallery past the library where you can bid on works by mostly unknown painters, then there is a steakhouse and a little further back a lounge bar with live music then another restaurant. This is just the center of the boat. There's about ten floors of staterooms and suites with free room service, and a pretty cheap laundry service. On the top floor is a spa and gym, private sanctuary pool with cabanas, an italian restaurant, and yet another bar. There's another nightclub at the very front of the ship that overlooks the deck. One floor down are two buffets that are usually always open with little gaps between meal periods. From the buffet court you can make your way out to a back adults only pool deck or a larger pool with a movie screen that played movies all day and night. On the back pool deck live music and DJs played alternately, there was also a pizza, hot dog, burger and ice cream bar open all day right next to the pool. And lets not forget the most important part of the ship I'll never have to go to, a kids and teenager deck which acted as a holding pen to keep the other decks clear.
Suffice to say I started drinking immediately and didn't stop for seven days. For dinner we had a standing reservation every night in the Botticelli dining room staffed to the brim with attentive eastern europeans. Working in food and beverage I can appreciate how good the service on this ship was. Every worker smiles, they will do just about anything you ask them to and never give you so much as a sideways glance. You also notice really quickly on these ships that there are next to no Americans working on them. It's my theory that we don't have the same threshold for annoying tourists that europeans do. I ordered an Iced mocha on the pool deck one day, waited about 15 minutes and finally it came. I asked the waiter what took him so long, usually the drinks came back in about a minute. I found out he had to go all the way to the bottom of the piazza where the cafe was then take an elevator and stairs from the opposite end of the boat to bring the mocha to me. I had no idea, he didn't even bat an eye when I asked him or seem even a little annoyed.
The only unfortunate part of the trip was sharing a room with my sister. We actually had a decently sized closet. For one person. We seemed to have a misunderstanding about who should get all of the hangers. From my point of view all of her lacy little skimpy dresses put together didn't have as much fabric as one of my shirts. Therefore I should get all of the hangers and she should put all of her little tissue thin loincloths on one. This seemed like the only logical solution. To repay me for bogarting the closet she left a present for me in the stateroom. I came back to the room from my first margarita bender to find her in bed reading Cosmo.
"Why does it already smell bad in this room?" She looked up and shrugged. I scoured the room for the culprit. My sister is a wild uncouth animal. I was expecting to find a partially devoured animal carcass, banana peels and watermelon seeds in her sheets. I checked under the bed for any food remnants. I looked in all the trash cans. I was frustrated. Where could the smell have been coming from? Finally I gave up looking and went to grab my cologne from the bathroom to spray the room down. It was there I found the culprit. For Christmas my sister had left me a giant present in the toilet.
"Did you forget to flush the toilet you beast?" I kicked the lid down and flushed. She looked up from her magazine. "You animal! Do I look like one of your college roommates?" I tried to thrash her with a bathrobe but she apparently thought that her lump of coal was a hilarious gift and started laughing uncontrollably. "I mean what the hell were you eating? That thing was like a sea monster." I kept beating her with the towel until she ran out onto the connecting balcony and into our parent's room. When my mother heard what she had done she chased her right back out. This trip was supposed to be about luxury and pampering not pampers for my scatologically challenged sister.
And from a forgotten flush to a royal flush I decided to escape fecal captivity for some fiscal activity. I wholly intended to activate my own stimulus plan in the casino. At first I tested the waters at the poker table, however a $1/2 no limits game can add up quickly, especially when you have a bunch of ridiculous amateurs raising the pot because they think they're a high roller, when really they just don't know what they're doing. It should have been easy money but I've found that reckless poker players are just and dangerous as experienced ones. People who bluff too much and push the pot too high raise the stakes too early make it hard to discern who at the table actually does know what they're doing. After a few hands I was up but not by much and was mostly fed up with the the casino crown. It wasn't even the fun kind of tacky with old white haired ladies with fanny packs and cigarettes. It was just depressing. I stopped in the speakeasy to have a smoke and met one of the crew.
After a few sideways glances I could tell he was gay so I asked him where all the attractive men were. I figured it was a safe bet.
"Usually there are more, this crowd seems like mostly families."
"No single older Jewish men?"
"No, they all take cruises departing in Florida. In Texas it's all christians and republicans."
"What?"
"You could try the gay mixer, they meet at the martini bar in about ten minutes. Do you know where the--"
"Okay thanksbye," the second he said gay and martini in the same sentence I was gone. In ten minutes I freshened my cologne and arrived at the LGBT group in a new outfit sans underwear. I sat at the bar and ordered and Hendricks martini while scoping out the crowd. I didn't see my gays anywhere. After a minute of sipping my martini and older (I mean much older) gentleman came up and asked if I was here for the, ahem, meeting. "Yes I'm here for the gays, where are they?" The bartender giggled like she was in on the joke. He gestured to a huddle of old men in their sixties and seventies.
"We're over there."
"That's the group? The gay mixer?"
"Grab your drink and come on over."
I glanced over at the bartender, "If I had known it was gonna be like this I would have left my underwear on." She shrugged. I had no choice but to go over and join my people. I was officially one of the old men.
Over dinner I griped to my mother.
"There were three couples, all retired, all over sixty."
"Well, at least you know they're the marrying type!"
"Because they're already married! You signed a legally binding contract."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't give me that, I had my people fax it over."
"I don't have a fax machine. Just eat your flan and enjoy the fact that tomorrow we're snorkeling in Cozumel. You'll get your husband."
Since the gay group was such a bust I decided to go to the one activity that no gay man could resist, karaoke. I looked at all the teeny boppers singing various pop songs stumbling through the runs. I was going to find my gays even if I had to humiliate myself in the process. I ordered a double Drambuie at the bar. The bartender gave me a karaoke slip.
"There's one slot left, you better sign up if you want to sing."
"I'm not sure, I didn't see any show tunes in your book, those are my comfort zone. Hall and Oates maybe?"
"You'd be great! You have the mustache and everything. I'll sign you up."
"Wait--" but before I could stop him he had signed me up. And worse yet, I was the last song. I had never sang karaoke in front of this many people before, maybe asian style in a room with friends. But this was a full nightclub. When I was up I strolled on to the stage. They handed me the microphone and cued up the song. At first I was on fire, You Make My Dreams was my go-to shower song, I knew the whole first verse by heart, I wasn't even looking at the monitor, until of course I got to the second verse which I usually fudged through and mumbled in the shower. I looked up at the monitor and realized that the timing was off and lyrics were already a verse ahead. I had two choices I could grab a life vest and throw myself overboard, or I could hum and dance suggestively with the microphone stand and chime in at you make my dreams come true.
Afterwards I was devastated. If there were any gays in the audience I had certainly repelled them by bombing my international karaoke debut. That microphone stand would be the only thing I bump and grind on this trip. I took myself out for a cigarette to take the edge off.
"Can I get a light?" I heard from behind me. Wait a minute, that was the gay hello. I had found the gays, or well, I had found one of them. "You were great by the way, I love that song. Are you going up to the dance club?" He was a little awkward and boyish. But at this point I had no plans no panties and no reason to say no.
