Johnny Walker Debacle

I have learned my roommate loves: flossing her teeth. As in sometimes, she is sitting around and thinks “I’d love to floss my teeth” and does it. This is hilarious and I would tell me it is a lie, except I have witnessed it.

Today is my brother’s birthday, hurrah! We are close to Christmas. I think we will sing carols tomorrow at 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. and go to an Interdenominational church service at midnight. The crew bar is decorated with tinsel, which I love, and there are proper, very decorated trees all over the place. My roommate got a free weight reducing treatment from the spa (they wrap you in mud and zap you with weird electrodes and say ‘you lost 12 inches!’ which is, I think, water weight). She and I had to get our keys fixed from Personnel, and a Filipino HR woman told us how she…shhh…has a real tree in her room. “With lights. Shhhh.” And it is the best thing in the world to go home to after work. Did I mention how tiny our rooms are?

Our room steward Noel, a 5’4” mustachioed gentleman from Nicaragua, asked us to get him some Nicaraguan rum in port. He had some kind of a hookup (Nicaraguan mafia?) that would pull any booze meant for 10161, our cabin number. We said “no no, it is a gift from us to you. Merry Christmas.” Then we insisted we get something for Marcos, his friendly, mustachioed 5’6” Filipino partner who loves to tell both of us we are beautiful, and propose to my roommate. We kept saying “what does Marcos like to drink? What does he like?” and I decided he likes Johnny Walker, since I have heard stories of Filipinos and Johnny Walker. Noel said “uh…” and we figured he was helping us be sly. Well, we got Marcos a liter of Johnny Walker Red. It took some back and forth, so Noel ended up giving it to Marcos behind closed doors. Marcos was very happy. The teeny tiny problem, as Noel told us in a crew hallway, is that Marcos has already had 2 warnings for booze and that he is “definitely a party person.” As in, once he passed out in the crew mess and when security tried to wake him up, he shooed them away like an annoying auntie. Meaning, he shooed away Nepalese special forces who are trained to kill. If he gets a third, they will fire him, and he'll be left at a port and have to figure out how to get home. So, Marcos said to my roommate, after picking up a case of Heinekin “I have two questions. One: can I keep my whiskey in your room, and two: can I kiss you.” So. I have no idea what we did. Possibly something terrible. Although, now that his whiskey will be in here, maybe they will come in a bunch more and it will be incredibly clean, until the booze hits.

I got delightful packages in the mail. Delightful! From Michelle (hi Michelle) and my mom (yes!) and a random pair of underwear I left at Heather’s. Approximately 2 lbs. of candy were consumed in 2 days.