Cruise Post #9: Until you reminded me, I was planning on being helpless.

Remember how I thought Josh and I would be able to do what we wanted during the day and meet up with his family for dinner? Even Josh’s mom said that we would be able to do this when they were asking me to go on the cruise.

Unfortunately, all those words were empty. Not only were we joined to Josh’s parents by the hip, I had apparently become 5 years old! Take the following example from when we were about to head to the beach:

JOSH’S MOM
Did you remember to put on sun block?

MY INNER MONOLOGUE
No, I was thinking about cultivating a massive sunburn to end all sunburns and possibly getting skin cancer, but thanks to you, I’ve changed my mind

ME
Yes.

On evenings when we were going to attend a pre-dinner performance, Josh’s dad would call us and say that he was coming to pick us up. I would stare incredulously at the phone after hearing those words, wondering why Josh and I would need to be “picked up” to attend a show that was just three floors below ours. It’s not like we had to drive somewhere or we had no sense of direction (actually, the “grown-ups” had the worst sense of direction out of all of us). In fact, Josh’s parents would walk to our end of the ship to pick us up only to double back towards their cabin because the auditorium was on their end of the ship! Also, why did we have to sit together at the show anyway? It’s not like we talk to each other during the performance.

Sometimes, Josh and I would leave the cabin early on purpose to avoid the “we’re coming to pick you up” phone call. Then we would head to the dining room early and wait for the rest of our party, smiling at them, showing that despite the fact Josh’s parents thought we were morons and couldn’t find our way out of a wet paper bag, we managed to find the dining room ourselves and arrive before the rest of them.