New Jersey, Jocks and Pink Eye

New Jersey!

There was a selection of very jockish buzz haircut football playing Asian kids on board last cruise. They talked with a lot of “duh what’re you doin’” around the buffet and then showed off their muscles. One of them decided to make out with a girl he had just met or something (shy, semi-nerd-funky with glasses and long black hair) in the middle of the hallway, at the bottom of a stairwell, right below the buffet. I walked out and caught them kissing, which they immediately stopped, and she put her head in his neck and hid and he pretended he had to look straight ahead at the elevators. Then I got a cookie, by which I mean 3, and had such delightful thoughts about cookies that I forgot not to go down that stairwell. So I did and caught them again. They did the exact same stop tactic although this time he impatiently started to shake his leg, waiting for me to go. O TEENAGERS!

All of them, by the way, have a) extremely short buzz cut haircuts, b) fashion baseball hats worn artfully cockeyed, c) well fitting plaid shorts that do not hang low, but go below the knees, and d) white low top shoes with barely visible socks. This says “I am from Jersey.” Possibly “New York” and possibly “East Coast.” I have no idea. There is also male eyebrow shaping and large diamond/cubic zirconia earrings on the gentlemen, the flashier ones employing both ears.

Today’s passengers include:
A family with blue tshirts with white writing that says “Cruise 2008.” A family reunion/trip/something with neon green tshirts that say a list of Irish-ish last names on the back. A family with big white tshirts and a picture of a cruise ship that says “THIS IS MY [insert number] CRUISE” as is appropriate to them. One fluffy-ish 14-ish year old with day glow orange clearly fake nails had a t-shirt that said it was her 11th cruise.

Also, a Russian/Eastern European/Ukranian/something family with a probably 30-ish year old daughter. All of them dressed like they were about 23 and about to go clubbing, including the dad who had very trendy sunglasses, very trendy white long pointy shoes, and a trendy, tight light blue t-shirt with arty graphics stretched very far over his giant, round tummy. He has full white hair. I will attempt a photo.

There is also a little 10 or 11 ish year old girl who wore a head scarf. As we got closer to the statue of liberty, the wind blew her hair around, making it pretty obvious that she is going through chemo. The nice part is that her brother/cousin seemed to ignore her, so the world still made sense.

Also, note, vis a vis the hilarious South African doctors in the medical center: a small tale:
a) so I had a pretty bad idea and kept my contacts in water for about 2 weeks, probably 3, because I ran out of solution. Then I got some solution and just put them in there for a few days.
b) I then decided to put them in my eye anyway. My eye reacted by burning and turning red and tearing up, which I decided was dramatic and false and made my eye wear said contact all day.
c) I got pink eye.

So I went to the medical center and was prescribed eye drops. My exact prescription is like this: “well, usually you put 2 drops in your eye every four hours. I’d say just put 1 or 2 drops in your eye every hour for today—maybe 2--then tomorrow just do 2 every two hours or four hours or so then you know, so do like that and then instead of a slow attack, it’ll kill the germs fast. And when it stops bothering you, you know, stop uh, using it.”