Bingo

A few friends and I had planned to meet in the crew bar last night at 11. If you get down there before 12, you can have a little bit of decent lighting and ambient, pleasant music. After that, a “guest dj” gets control of the stereo and turns the volume up to ear bleed levels and plays the exact same songs I have been hearing for 8 months. Well, last night was crew bingo. Drinks were free at the bar and 3 bingo games were going to happen with prizes of $400, $800, and $2,000. Bingo doesn’t do it for me. The spa girls came down, very dressed up and cute and waiting to be noticed, and said “we’re just here to drink.” The guys were all waiting for bingo.

I talked to a guy from Shore Excursions (although the lingo is: shorex) who is tall and smiles a lot and looks about 8 but is probably close to 40. I asked him if he likes bingo, he made a very disgusted, disappointed face and nodded. “On a Friday night at home, I like to play a quick game of bingo, then go hit the clubs.” He is from Vegas. He said he likes Vegas, but “I’m tired of the strip, I got a house, I’m just used to it. But I’ve lived there for 11 years.” I asked him when he got used to it—year 5? Year 2? He said: “Well…I was drunk for the first 5 years and then I was awake for the next 5 and then… The last year was great.” A YC asked him “which did you prefer--drunk or awake?” He said: “…that last year.” Oh. He’s now got a shorex job, which means he knows all about the tours, although the main part of his job is “sales—it’s all selling.” He said he loves it, although another shorex gentlman, tall, ballerina-ish from St. Lucia and very very gay interrupted and said “Shorex? I hate it. Ugh, I hate it. It’s all sales—I hate it.” The YC asked our shorex guy how he got the job—he’s only been working with ships for the past 2 years. He started in room service (and we about fainted, because he is an American), then moved to casino (which he hated because no one liked him because he was an American and was seen as taking a job away, in his opinion), then moved to shorex. Ships!

Our room steward bought a laptop, a very nice Sony Viao. The salesman told him he had to spent $125 on virus protection software, which he did not get. The salesman said “if you go on the internet without this virus protection, your computer will break” which was very bold and obviously a lie but terrified our room stewards, who spent $800 for 250 GB. Sam and I had fun getting mad at the salesman and insisting he get the freebie instead, although neither of us could remember the name of the freebie. We told him where to get good internet. I should note that crew laptops provide very different pinups. I saw one guy sitting in the corner of a mall in St. John, tucked next to a jewelry kiosk. He did a good job looking serious and frowning at his computer and hunching over it like it was a spreadsheet. The only problem was his back was against the escalator, so everybody coming down the escalator saw that he was meticulously studying the photo of a naked lady/teenager.

Our room steward Raynaldo is an ace ping pong player. He gets laser focus and sweats very hard and gives people a run for their money. One of his opponents got sick the morning after playing ping pong because he played too hard the night before. We asked Ray if he is the best, he shrugged and said “I won seven games.”

The iPhone has descended on our cast and circle of acquaintance. Getting an iPhone instantly makes you deeply boring to people who don’t have one. They are all nerding out to the point of distraction and social death. Like oh, playing a crossword puzzle in the middle of conversation or, oh, playing a virtual slot machine in the middle of conversation or, oh, having conversations about apps like apps are religious relics. And yes, I realize I would be this boring if I got one too. Yes.