Laughter

As I mentioned in yesterday's summary of our vacation, we shared a LOT of laughs with our friends. Hopefully I can describe some of them so you can enjoy them too.

Honey, what's this? What's happening? Why am I still sober? (Said with a Karen Walker voice)
This was a favorite phrase of mine and Steven, likely the 2 biggest Karen Walker fans, whenever there was a lull in any conversation.

Is that Standard time, ship time, or Central time?
The night we set sail, most of the US set their clocks back an hour. For some reason, the ship's clocks were not set back until a few days later. Then we crossed from Eastern into Central time, then sailed back into Eastern time again. It seemed we never really knew what time it was!

Let's not ignore the obvious
When we entered a souvenir store on Grand Cayman the female shop keeper said to Steven "The plus size t-shirts are over here" to which he replied "What are you trying to say?" Giving Steven a once-over, she said "Let's not ignore the obvious", which easily became the most repeated phrase on our vacation!

I figured as much
In another store on Grand Cayman Steven & Thad and I were pointing and laughing at the 'hooker heals' for sale. The female shop keeper asked if we wore high heels. Steven said "I don't, but he does" and pointed to me. Without missing a beat, the shop keeper replied "I figured as much." We decided Grand Cayman must have the boldest shop keepers in the Caribbean.

Red dot!! Red dot!!
Chumley Bear Cruise passengers were issued ID tags to wear which gave us admission into Chumley events and helped us identify each other throughout the ship. Monogamous couples were instructed to place a red dot on their badge while singles and non-monogamous couples used a green dot. One morning Spouse was approached by a man in the elevator on his way to the gym. Spouse's badge had flipped over so the red dot could not be seen. The man made his interest in Spouse very well known. Later as I recounted this incident to the others I said that Spouse probably flipped his badge over and yelled "Red dot!! Red dot!!"

Yes thank you please
Cruise ships pride themselves on having a diverse, international crew. One of the waiters at dinner bore a striking resemblance to Imelda Marcos and even appeared to be wearing make-up. He was a terrific waiter and each time we spoke with him he ended the exchange with 'Yes thank you please'.

Pocono Ed
One of the guys we met in advance of the cruise was named Ed who lived in the Poconos of PA. When we saw him on the ship I said "There's Pocono Ed" and from then on he retained the moniker.

Mini Bear and Howard Stern
Two other guys we met in advance of the cruise and then saw frequently on the ship were from NJ. One of them was much shorter than average so we nicknamed him Mini Bear. His boyfriends voice sounded a lot like that of radio personality Howard Stern, so we referred to the duo as Mini Bear and Howard Stern.

The fake Bobs
Very often we hung out at the pool at the back of the ship, which had 2 balconies that overlooked the pool and sundeck. From there we saw a man who looked very much like our friend Bob K and another man who looked very much like our friend Bob N (aka The Bobs). We referred to these impostors as The fake Bobs.

Fake Honduras
Our port of call in Honduras was a small island adjacent to Roatan where the only buildings were souvenir shops, restaurants, bars, and beach cabanas. No one lived there and the structures were obviously built for cruise ship passengers. For this reason we dubbed the island the fake Honduras.

Waffle
The waffles on the breakfast buffet were not square, but rather, shaped like a flower. The butter served with the bread at dinner was not square either, but rather, shaped like the waffles which looked like a flower. We noticed that when 4 or 5 guys would face each other with their arms on each others' shoulders in the pool, they resembled the flower-shaped waffles so we called those male pool formations waffles.

Selling children
In a children's clothing store on Princess Cay we were startled by life-like, life-size mannequins. These mannequins didn't have the typical same color faces as the bodies, but had faces with eyes, eyebrows, and lips painted on them. They were so real looking that we joked that they were selling children instead of children's clothing. We laughed even harder as we joked about how long it takes to adopt when you can just come to Princess Cay and buy one! This went on and on until we had to leave the store for fear we'd be thrown out.

Oriental spread
One day the lunch buffet had an array of Chinese food. After eating it we were talking about how good it was. Someone who wasn't paying attention to the conversation asked what was so good, to which Spouse replied "The Oriental spread." That sounded funny, as we pictured the other possible uses of that term. Later when Spouse straddled the lounge chair we jokingly asked if he was offering an Italian spread.

Entertainment Tonight
On the last day of the cruise our group had a pool party. One of the activities was to vote on the most friendly passenger. After the competition was over, a passenger who'd been liberally enjoying drinks from the bar all day came up to us in an exaggerated disgust and said that he had been robbed of the title 'Most Friendly'. With slurred words and flailing arms he assured us that the whole story would be on Entertainment Tonight. We referred to HIM as Entertainment Tonight for his 'entertaining' behavior.

Bubbles
While on (fake) Honduras we saw an older woman riding around in one of those scooters with very small wheels, designed for people with mobility issues. As she was enjoying the beach she got a little too close to the softer sand near the surf and her scooter wheels got stuck. We happened to be walking past her when this happened and asked if we could help. Seconds later a young man came running over and said "What's the matter Bubbles, are you stuck?" He pulled her back to the harder sand and she drove off. Back on the ship I saw Bubbles scooting around so I said to her "Well, I'm glad to see you made it back to the ship, safe and sound, Bubbles." She smiled at me and said "I don't want to miss any of the fun."

Beryl & Beryl
Also while on the beach at (fake) Honduras we met an older couple who sat down and began talking to us. When we asked their names we found out they were both named Beryl. Now, Beryl is a rather unusual name, so we found it quite odd that 2 people named Beryl would find each other! The female Beryl later told us she goes by the nickname Billie.

Welcome Wagon Steven
My good friend Steven is known in these parts for being a no-nonsense kind of guy. Despite his teddy bear appearance he tries to portray a gruff exterior. However, on this cruise he did a 360 about face and said hello to everyone he saw! I suggested he could get a job with Welcome Wagon.

Pitter Patter Paper
The cruise ship provided us with a schedule of the next day's activities in the 'Princess Patter', slipped under our stateroom door every evening. One day while trying to figure out something about the next day's itinerary I suggested we could find the answer in the Pitter Patter Paper. The rest of the week we all referred to it as such.

Jason Alexander
A member of the Chumley group bore a real resemblance to the actor Jason Alexander so we referred to him as Jason Alexander for the duration of the cruise.

Harvey Korman
One of the ship's crew (I think he was the dining room manager) bore a striking resemblance to the actor Harvey Korman, so whenever we'd see him (every night in the dining room) we'd say "There's Harvey Korman".

Club Chaos
The venue where several of the Chumley group activities took place was called Club Fusion. Once I made the mistake of calling it Club Chaos and we all decided we liked that name better than Club Fusion, so for the rest of the week we made arrangements to meet at Club Chaos.

Kelly Clarkson
As we were wading into the slightly chilly water in Princess Cay, the cool water lapped up over my crotch and startled me so I tensed up and shouted "Aaaaaah - Kelly Clarkson!!", imitating this scene from the film "40 Year Old Virgin". Thad cracked up, and we continued the imitation but supplied other American Idol winners' names. "Aaaaaaah - Fantasia Borino!!", "Aaaaaah - Ruben Stoddard!!!", etc.

Steve rubs a stranger
Shortly after the Kelly Clarkson incident, we'd gotten used to the water temperature and were enjoying the lagoon. Steve reached behind him to rub up against his partner Thad, then all the sudden saw Thad several feet across from him. He turned around to find that he had rubbed up against a total stranger, who apparently felt no need to notify him!

Sexy by nature
We saw a guy on the ship wearing a t-shirt that read "Naughty By Nature" and Thad decided he should write a blog about how sexy his partner Steven is, which he would entitle "Sexy by Nature".

Self-induced coma
Chris meant to say medically-induced coma but instead said self-induced coma. We all cracked up as we imagined how one would later get one's self OUT of a self-induced coma!

Some of this humor may get lost in the translation, but I'm telling you these things provided us with more than our share of laughs on the cruise! Sometimes even those around us laughed.