Ominatio (o-mi-na’-ti-o): A prophecy of evil
They called it a love boat. It was named “The Urchin.” The passengers signed up for our cruise called “Reconciliation Vacation.” They were trying to repair their damaged marriages. I was serving as a cabin boy, tending to guests’ personal needs. This was Captain Alzheemar’s 1,500th voyage and he was becoming cognitively impaired. For example, he kept yelling “Avast” at young women in bathing suits by the pool. He had started wearing a life jacket all the time, eroding passenger confidence in the ship’s seaworthiness. Last, he started wearing his captain’s hat backwards.
The rest of the crew was a little quirky too. One of the stokers was teaching himself how to eat fire. Luckily, he practiced down in the boiler room. The chef had burned his hand and was wearing a Sponge Bob mitten to cover and protect the burn which he had received when a rum cake had gone up in flames.
We had 25 marriage therapists on board to make the reconciliations happen. Given my observations, I thought reconciliation was impossible.For example, I had seen a man purposely step on his wife’s foot. I predicted there would be some kind of brawl or riot, although I didn’t think it would happen so soon.
There was a dinner dance reception scheduled for 7.00 pm. In order to induce people to attend, there was a raffle. First prize was 100 cans of tuna fish and a tuna cookbook titled “Bona For Tuna.” Nearly all the passengers showed up. Those who didn’t were fighting in their cabins. There was ample alcohol and the guests were sucking it up. The music started. It was Blondie’s “Call Me.” Suddenly, somebody yelled “You do that again and I’ll fu*kin kill you.” It was like a cue for people to start arguing. The song ended and they went back to their tables arguing. Then somebody threw a pork loin and all hell broke loose. A flaming chair went flying across the dance floor. The marriage therapists were singled out and being bombarded with salad and water, poked on their hands with dessert forks, and hit by small barrages of wedding rings.
The Reconciliation Vacation was a complete disaster. We docked in Bermuda, in Hamilton the next day, and most of the guests disembarked and rented motor scooters to tour the island. There were 108 motor scooter fatalities. They were deemed accidental by the cash-strapped Bermudian coroner’s office. The remains were loaded into the ship’s walk-in freezers below deck and would be buried at sea somewhere between Bermuda and Boston.
As we left Hamilton, Captain Alzheemar came on the PA and said: “We are about to start our engines and get the hell out of here. While we wait, try to say ‘toy boat’ three times quickly.” As Captain crazy pants signed off the PA, I was thinking, maybe the Reconciliation Vacation was somewhat successful. It didn’t help everybody, but it was instrumental in alleviating the marital dysfunction in possibly 108 lives.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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