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Day V, 3:30pm
Costa Maya, México All this grueling relaxation can wear a body down, so today I decided to take it easy for a change. Actually, Ben is suffering from a bad back that makes him walk like a chicken. "I deserve this after all the nasty things I've been saying about cripples. Now I am one." "Yeah, but you're the youngest, cutest, thinnest cripple on the boat!" I shudder to think of my pending comeuppance for my thoughts and words on the subject. I took Ben down to the infirmary this morning hoping they'd have someone on hand to crack his back into shape. Instead, they injected his ass with a muscle relaxer (I took a picture of the event, but I doubt he'll let me post it. "Are you taking a picture of my ass? You're in trouble!"). "Try to lie down today," suggested the doctor. Well pooh, I thought, there goes my travel companion. And it was too late to track down the New York girls. And Rod Stewart is a vampire — no one has ever seen him in daylight hours. I took a brief stroll through the port of Costa Maya which was your typical tourist trap complete with diamond, tanzanite and perfume stores and pushy Mexicans dragging protesting Americans into their arts-n-crafts shops kicking and screaming. There didn't seem to be much more going on in the vicinity, and I didn't feel like taking a taxi to the Mayan ruins alone. Tequila has never been my friend, so I went back to the ship. There was a man weighing close to 400 lbs. shoehorned into his cripplecart trying to get back on the ship. The exasperated but helpful crew member tried to explain to him, "Well, people are coming off the ship on this ramp. I think we're going to have to open a special portal just for you." I stood there dumbstruck, thinking, the day I need a special door prepared for my entrance is the day I'm ending it all with a bottle of Seconal and a vodka chaser. Unless it's my red-carpeted arrival at the Academy Awards. I shimmied thinly along the gangplank and back onto the ship. I installed my cripple next to the pool with a book and went off in search of a spare piano that I could pound on for a while. After some mangled Bach, Rach and Chopin, we had some lunch and now it looks like it's nap-time. My account of the day is boring, but the reality is anything but. It's nice being on the boat while it's relatively empty. The drunk monkeys aren't screaming and splashing in the pool. The piano is available. The lift doesn't stop at every floor on the way to where you want to go. The hallways are devoid of lumbering jackasses and cripplecart traffic and pram-jams. It's quiet. Relaxing. Sorry, Costa Maya. I'd love to see your ruins, but I'm feeling a bit ruined myself. I'm going to curl up with a good book and a cripple for a while. |
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