“What day is it?” Earl asked early in the morning. I had to think, since the days had begun to fuse together. “Uh, Thursday?” I answered his question with another. “I think so,” he replied. Then came the harder question: What was the date?
It always happens.
Cruising makes time irrelevant. You don’t know what day of the week it is or what date in a given month. All you know is that tomorrow is Aruba and the day after is Bonaire. You know that High Tea is served each day in the Michelangelo dining room and the casino is open whenever the ship is not in port. You know you can eat anytime of the day or night, and eventually you realize that what is the pizza bar for lunch is also the waffle station for breakfast. Mozzarella cheese simply changes places with maple syrup.
Then there are the customary sail-aways and Calypso bands and drinks of the day. There are the ice carvings and trivia contests and staff talent shows. The cooking demonstrations and line dance demonstrations and jewelry demonstrations.
By the time you’ve been on board a cruise ship a few days, the feeling of not caring about days or dates is overwhelming. You forget to check the news or the stock market or weather in other parts of the world. Instead, you’re a lemming veering uncontrollably toward the sea cliff of relaxation. In the telling it may reek of cheesy-ness, but in the living it is a total escape.
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