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.