The wife and her friends went to some video pitch for a cruise last week.

Someone said “Let’s cruise”, her eyes lit up and she was off.

I didn’t go because that’s about the same as going to a free time share dinner in my book.

So she comes home all fired up with us taking an Alaska cruise next year.

With her friends, of course.

I was saying “okay, whatever you want” and everything was fine until she got to this part:

“It’ll make memories for us in case one of us dies.”

Whoa, huh?

“If you die I’ll have memories of you and if I die you’ll have memories of me.”

You have to understand this is her being romantic.

Sometimes I have to take what I can get.

We’ve been together 20 years.

I got so many memories I have to open my brain once a month and shake some out to make room for new stuff.

Regardless of what the salesperson told them, you go on a cruise to eat, drink and sleep and watch the water.

Or if you’re on Carnival Cruise, drift with no electricity, toilets or food for a week.
The new version of camping out.

I’ve been on cruises before she and I met.

Back when I was a TV news guy, we went on a 7-day around the islands cruise for a story on the industry.

We stopped at Kona, Hilo, Maui and Kauai each for a day so people could go ashore and buy stuff like puka shell necklaces and t-shirts saying stuff like “I saw Hawaii from a ship”.

My problem was the cameraman with me was a boozer and spent so much time in the ship’s bar his video was mostly worthless.

Interesting trip.

In between trying to get a nice story, I ate a lot, sat around a lot, hung on the rail watching things a lot, and watched him drink a lot.

Cruises make lots of stops so people can go on tours so you have other things to do besides sit around a lot.

The concept today is a floating hotel that finds you in a different city each day.

Cruise ships also have lots of on-board activities to keep people from getting bored.

This one has tea tasting, beer tasting, yoga, learning Windows 8, topped by a tour of the ship’s kitchen.

Geesh, I can do that stuff at home if I wanted to.
Which I don’t.

I suppose some people find that exciting.
I don’t see how.

I’m betting what she finds exciting is the all the time she can sit around and talk with her girlfriends.

I think I might understand now what she was saying.

That stuff is going to kill me and she’ll have her memories.

I’m not one for dropping videos in here, but this should touch you.
God bless Delta Airlines.

I wonder if Hawaiian Airlines has something similar…
If not, shame on them

Just click.

www.youtube.com/embed/c_VGxfmDmEo

I have one of those first names that woman have taken for themselves.

It’s sort of like Billy/Billie or Bobby/Bobbi except in my case both versions are spelled the same way.

It all started when ladies came up with strange spellings for their daughter’s names.

It’s no longer Jane, it’s Jyne, or Wzittica instead of whatever it should be.

I suspect the drive to be an individual outweighs common sense.

When someone calls and asks for me and I say they got me…there’s a long pause while their brain tries to handle this new information.

I usually say something like it was a guy’s name before it was a girl’s name and everybody laughs and feels better.

I like people to be comfortable after they stick both feet in their mouth.

Since I have only met one other man with the same first name in my entire life, you can understand it was an unusual name before women stole it.

Now, if you do a Google search on my first name and look at the images tab, there’s nothing but pictures of women.

Including one of a stripper in pasties named Courtney Crave.
Not bad.

Then there’s Courtney Stodden.
She’s an embarrassment to the world.

I try to see the positive side to all this.

Mail addressed to “Ms” can be automatically thrown out since it’s obvious they really have no idea who I am.

Then, my wife can use my credit cards without anyone thinking she might have stolen them because they assume the name on the card is a woman’s name – and she’s a woman – so all is well.

As long as it’s not at Macy’s.

She has a long and very personal history with every employee there due to buying at least one of everything if it’s on sale.

And we know everything in Macy’s is on sale at one time or another.

Especially ugly shoes.
But we’ll save that for another time.

I’ve wondered what it would be like to be married to someone with the same first name.

Sounds like a script for a bad sitcom.

I comfort myself by thinking all the ladies I have met in my life loved me and my name so much that they gave it to their daughters.

That’s really quite an honor.

Now cut it out.

It’s causing me grief.