Jinx

I went on a cruise to the Bahamas a little over a week ago. As many of you know, cruises are all about fun. Adults get wasted, kids go party, and we all eat as much as we can possibly take. And then some. I had a great time on my vacation – the other teens in O2 were amazing, the 24-hour ice cream and pizza were delicious, and the ice machine in the Lido buffet was fantastic (The ice was really good, okay? Don’t judge me.). And we ate a lot of food. Oh my stars, we ate a lot of food.

However, for those of you who don’t know, on the first day of a cruise, right as the ship is about to set sail, there is a mandatory safety briefing. On my last cruise, our muster station was in the bar. Yeah, we lucked out. This time we were in the giant lounge (a theater by any other name would be as Vegas-y), which did have one redeeming quality in the form of giant, comfy couches. All passengers must meet at their muster station where the crew teaches you how to use your life-vests (their lessons were nowhere near as entertaining as Southwest's), where to go in the event that the ship is sinking, and where the life boats are. And they aren’t messing around – the bars are closed. Oh yeah, they mean business. That being said, the crew does recognize that no one actually wants to go to these briefings. They try to make the brief as, well, brief as possible lest the guests become irritated and less willing to buy obscenely overpriced booze.

During the safety briefing, the crew at each muster station goes through the demonstrations while the Captain reads through the instructions on the intercom. After we were ushered out to our respective lifeboats, the Captain started reading the script for the second part of the briefing.

Captain: These are your lifeboats. The lifeboats are designed to hold between 100 and 150 passengers, depending upon the specific lifeboat. They have been specially designed for balance to avoid taking on water, and are unsinkable.

I’m sorry, WHAT???

Really now??? You just broke the cardinal rule of sailing! (The first is never get involved in a land war in Asia - only slightly less known is to never get involved in a battle of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line.)

Have you never seen Titanic? The unsinkable boat that, well, SANK??? You NEVER describe a boat as unsinkable! That dooms it to, well, sink!

Let’s just say my confidence was a bit shaken after that.