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B : maybe it's you know the speech impaired people
A : oh ! I thought it was meant to be a couple of gay guys.
B : why would they reserve seats for gay guys?
A : I don't know. Maybe because they are french. Plus why do dumb
peole need seats? Why can't they fucking stand quitely in a corner
Like the rest of us?
Which is why it was a bit tragic for me when all my lifes dedication
and efforts were disregarded by aeromexico when they put this thing in
front of me on the Mexico city - Paris connection.
Now the previous post was about Mexican food and heaven knows I have
put enough posts praising mexiccan food, but what I fail to understand
is why a bunch of mexicans would try to feed me French food in a
location from which I could not concievably escape.
Now I do not hate French food. Fat people with food are like mother
Teresa with lepers. We love all food. But like her we understand that
there is simply not enough time to take care of all the food in the
world and we have to decide which food group needs us more.
People have gotten fat on frech food, but he fact is that whenever I
have tried the same, I have found it so exhaustively pretentious that
it burns off all the bloody fat. French dishes are named something
like "mon de rue el carap" which probably translates into something
like "crappy food from the roadside". Something which have been
sucessesfully feeding white tourists for the last fifty years at a
fraction of the cost.
I had thankfully eaten a hearty Mexican meal of something that sounded
distinctly more exotic ( diabla anyone?) before boarding, so I just
prodded around at it to check if it would retaliate and cut a cross
section of it. As you can see in the picture, it didn't make things
any better.
Next time if these guys do make me fly with these guys again, I hope
they will be considerate enough to provide parachutes as well as the
sissy life jackets.
Life is good. :)
I have to admit that safety regulations do help. They tune the mind to some
Zen like state, where you are able to sense danger. For example, when I
looked out of the porthole on the next glorious morning, I immediately
sensed danger as I saw the bosun running back along the deck with what was
evidently an alien object eating his arm right up to his shoulders.
Like all prudent masters, except Nelson and James Cook- who wound up dead at
sea, I immediately swung into action and prayed to god. Then I sat down at
the desk and looked at the phone for the next five minutes. At the end of
that time, as the phone had not rung, it was evident that the alien
infestation had spread among the whole crew, which in an zombie inspired
orgy of blood and trailing entrails, had hacked each other to bits. I felt
deep sympathy for my young valiant mess man as he bravely tried to warn me
on phone as the zombie oiler nibbled on his feet. Rookie mistake. Aliens
always use phone lines to spread and as he would have held the phone to his
ears, the small ant aliens would go into his ears and all that would have
remained of Eddie would have been an agonizingly silent cry of blinding pain
as his brain imploded. I sincerely grieved for Eddie. Or it was equally
possible that nothing of great importance had occurred. Either way, it
didn't look like I would be required to do anything, so I decided that it
was safe to venture out of my cabin.
As it turned out, the light and its refraction through my dual layered
porthole had played tricks on my mind. It was actually a small bosun who had
caught a big Lobster. And as big lobsters go, this was huge. Minus its
antennae, which were longer then it, this chap was about half a meter in
length. Lobsters apparently don't die when you take them out of the water.
But it certainly looks out of sort when placed on a steel platter surrounded
by the ships crew who were excitedly pointing out which part they would eat.
As I looked at its majestic sweep lying on the galley table, Eddie happily
showed me where he would cut along the back to put in the masala and let me
stew. I have honestly not seen such a big lobster in my life. There
definitely can't be too many of this size out there in the world. It seemed
crazy that a bunch of sailors eat this chap in the middle of the sea. The
guy deserved to be in some aquarium looking out at the passing gaggle of
school kids with its unblinking eyes. If this was a couple of hundred years
back, this chap would probably land up on the table of the local ruler to
get his favours. As I looked up, I saw the faces of the Excited crew staring
back at me.
With a deep sigh, mustering up all of my Captains demeanour, I pointed to
the sea creature and declared,
"I want to eat this part."
Another problem with cold fronts, ( apart from the aforementioned basic
problem that they are bloody cold), is that they bring bad weather with
them. The above picture of the houston channel, was the last day of good
weather that we had for the past week and by the time we had dropped anchor
in the Mexican oil fields two days out of Houston, the northerly swell has
started to roll in. It ended up dragging our anchor and forcing us out into
the Gulf of Campeche to fight it out with the sea. I don't think you ever
win with the sea, and we came back battered a couple of days later when she
calmed down a bit.
The problem with the hands on bigger ships like ours, is that we really
are a bit spoilt. So when the sea does get rough enough to make us
uncomfortable, we get really uncomfortable. I had thought that my cabin
furniture was firmly bolted to the deck, but a bout of particularly bad
rolling woke me up to a crash in my day-room in the middle of the night. As
I rushed in there in my boxers, my sofa, which is usually a rather inert
object, hurtled itself from the other end of the room right into my nuts. I
think its for the best that I'm already a dad.
Next morning did see the sea in a better if still disgruntled mood, a
dazed bunch of crew and a rather sheepish sofa.
