The trip off the boat to the airport was something out of a Laurel & Hardy movie. We followed all...well, mostly all...okay, one rule in getting off the boat. We put our luggage outside the door before 10 p.m. the night before so as not to have to lug them down a 6-mile-long gangway with the other 5000 passengers.
We had to miss our last Trivia game in the Goat and Crown Pub. Or was it the Wig and Whistle? Maybe the Hoot & Hanny? Such funny names for Trivia places.
Speaking of Trivia, let's just say playing Trivia with people who were one bulb short of being geniuses was a treat. But there is always one in the pack that stands out as the show-off.
Every day, hoards of us tramped into a room full of scooters and wheelchairs to answer questions that no one cared about.
Like...When were the first Air Jordan sneakers sold? (1984.) How many hearts does an octopus have? (3) When did Bob Dillion publish “Gone With the Wind” song? Seriously? Like never!
Here we were, answering 20 questions and only getting ....maybe... 6 or less...and only sometimes. Then this braggart comes along and answers 19 questions like he was Einstein.
He was intimidating to say the least. And he was carrying the winning keychain and waving it around the room like it was gold bullion.
But Traveler #2 got him good.
The guy comes up to wave his winning answers and his fancy keychain in front of us and says, “That was so easy, wasn’t it? How many answers did YOU get?"
"Oh, we got all 20," Traveler #2 says. "But we get them all every time and just don't turn our answers in."
The guy's face turns a burnt orange. "Every game?" he says suddenly tucking that keychain into his scooter basket.
"Every game," Traveler #2 says. "We just don't like to brag."
"What was your name again?” the man asks.
Traveler #2 says, “I’m Beach and this is Butter, my wife.”
The guy squints his eyes like he can't believe what he is hearing. I see him turn up his hearing aids.
“Really? What is your last name?”
Without a flinch, Traveler #2 says, “Ball.”
The guy repeats, “So you are Beach Ball and Butter Ball?”
Traveler #2 grins and says, “Yes. And I have a sister named Snow. Mom and Dad had a winter place in Florida, but we lived in Indiana."
By now the genius is rattled. He turns to me and says, “What was your maiden name?”
Not one to ruin a good time, I say, “Beans. And yes, I had two brothers, Lima and String.”
The names are rattling around as he strains to believe what he is hearing.
“Butter, String and Lima Beans?” I suddenly see his eyes roll back in his head.
"No one names their kids like that", he says.
Traveler #2 breaks out with an excuse that turns the braggart pure white.
“Sorry! We have to rush. The Fish family is looking for us," he says pointing at a couple walking past the exit door. "We are having dinner with them.”
Then he yells clear across the room to a totally random couple, “Hey Cat! Hey Tuna! Over here!”
We waved goodbye and left the room like it was burning down. I glanced back only once. The genius was holding his head before collapsing to the floor like he’d eaten a glass banana.
From that point on, the braggart couldn’t answer 4 questions in a row. And we got up to 16 out of 20. That taught him a lesson.
When the time came to depart the ship and we headed to off-load there was an “incident” that might have involved “someone” puking off the side of the gangway and “pretending” to be really sick. That little "distraction" may or may not have allowed us to wind our way through the thousands of wheelchairs and scooters and the hundreds of thousands of pieces of luggage in order to get to a taxi and get out of town.
Sure it was mean, but you try 14 days on a shipload of hemorrhoid conversations, the next "procedure" they'd be having, and dozens of fur-wearing women wearing white Addidas sneakers and knee highs wrapped around their ankles who smelled like Elizabeth Taylor's seventh husband after a long toilet binge and see what you'd do to leave. I must admit, it worked!
We had a little help. Something about a huge traffic jam on the gangway by the one old couple on the racing scooters. They jammed up the entire shipload of people behind us to help us escape. They had no place to be anyway. Love our new cruise buddies!
We were off to the airport hotel and on to Frankfurt the next day.
What else could happen, right?
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