I'll be honest with you. It's kind of tough to write a weekly blog post when you haven't left the house in six months. I guess I could write about watching television.. Oh, wait... I did that already. I guess I could write about what I've eaten. Oh, wait... I've done that, too. Well, how about I tell a funny story that I don't think I told before? Okay. Here goes...
Remember vacations? Remember when we took vacations? Well, Mrs. Pincus and I have taken a vacation nearly year that we've been married. In 2013, we took our first cruise and that has been our main choice of vacation every year since. We even took two cruises in some of those years. Although we've had many varied adventures on our various cruises, they have really all been pretty much the same. That's not a bad thing. We enjoyed each one, but the "cruise experience" for us doesn't really change from one cruise to the next. Perhaps. it's because we do a lot of the same activities on every cruise — buffet, shows, trivia contest, interactive games, casino, hokey singers in a lounge. Not necessarily in that order, but we would participate in all of those activities at some time during our one week stay aboard a giant, floating "city on the seas."
One particular morning, on one of these cruises (I actually forget which one, but it doesn't really make a difference), we were eating our breakfast out on the deck just outside of the ship's buffet. Actually, we had just come from the buffet line, where we piled our plates high with a selection of breakfast foods, as well as coffee and and juice. Now we had located an empty table in a shady area outside in the fresh Caribbean air, but covered by an upper deck overhang that afforded protection from the direct rays of the tropical sun.
Mrs. P and I were enjoying our morning meal, when we noticed two young men surveying the immediate area for an empty table. They were in their 20s, most likely traveling together, possibly coming off an evening of drinking and romantic companionship courtesy of someone they didn't know 24 hours earlier. They stood at the outer edge of the assembly of tables and chairs, slowly swiveling their heads and squinting to zero in on a place to set their overly-laden plates. (And I do mean "overly-laden." Looking at what they had collected from the buffet, I wondered if anything was left for the other passengers.)
This was a foolish move.
As soon as the two guys walked away from their table and anticipated breakfast, a large seagull swooped down and began investigating the situation. You see, several hours earlier, while most of the passengers were still asleep in their cabins — either enjoying a lazy slumber as vacationers or nursing the adverse effects of late-night reveling — the captain had guided the vessel into a predetermined port in keeping with the cruise itinerary. Which port? Who knows? After so many cruises, one pastel-camouflaged, distressed Caribbean harbor looks like all the others. Out in the open water, the animal world is sparsely represented — maybe a single, circling bird or the solitary jumping dolphin. But, in port, the seagulls are abundant and always in search of food scraps to scavenge. This particular seabird had hit the avian jackpot. Here were two enormous, bird-ready smorgasbords and no one around on "shooing away" duty. The feathered filcher gingerly pranced around on the table top for a bit before going full in on a stack of waffles with his beak. Mrs. Pincus and I watched in silent horrified amazement as bits of food flew up with each of the bird's rapid-fire pecks. The guys had still not returned and the gull was taking full advantage, enjoying an array of bacon, croissants, pancakes and — however cannibalistic — scrambled eggs. Either content or frightened, the bird finally flew away. From the far side of the dining area, one of the "20-something" fellows approached the table, his fingers curled around the porcelain handle of a steaming cup of coffee.
Mrs. Pincus — her involuntary motherly instincts kicking in — spoke up promptly before the young man lifted a fork or even sat down. "Excuse me," she began, raising her voice slightly to accommodate the distance between our tables, "I wouldn't eat that." The guy looked around at first, then focused on us, once he realized from where the warning was coming. He cocked his head inquisitively and replied, "Why not?"
Mrs. Pincus explained that, in his brief absence, a seagull had made a personal feast of the unprotected food they had left. The guy looked at us. Then, he looked at the two plates on the table. He lowered his head a bit and scrutinized the plates a bit more closely, visually probing the food for tell-tale signs of invasion to corroborate my wife's story. He looked up and, gesturing with his extended forefinger, he asked, "Both plates... or just mine?"
"Both, I think.," Mrs. Pincus answered. She furrowed her brow and a sort of disgusted grimace crossed her lips.
Just then, the guy was joined by his traveling companion. He saw his friend was having a conversation with some lady that he didn't know and asked "Hey, what's up?" His now-informed buddy related my wife's eyewitness account of the winged food thief. The two of them studied their plates, which, honestly, looked relatively the same as before they embarked on their coffee objective. As they continued to assess the extent of the damage, I finally interjected. "Y'know, you can just go get another plate of food," I said, "It's included in your trip. You can get as much as you like."
They didn't seem too motivated to go through the process of re-assembling "the perfect breakfast," as though months of rigorous preparation had led up to this very moment. Their body language and lack of urgency seemed to indicate that they would never achieve the exact balance of waffles and syrup or the precise ratio of orange marmalade to corn muffin surface area.
Mrs. Pincus went into full maternal mode. "Just go get another plate, boys.," she insisted. I had heard this tone many, many times when my son was younger. I also remember my own mother's stern command when I required guidance I didn't know I needed. Reluctantly, the two travelers headed back in the direction of the buffet, which was still open for another few hours and fully stocked with copious quantities of every single item that they had selected before. With a little thought and effort, they could easily duplicate their platters right down to the last pat of butter and golden square of hash browned potato. Hell, they could even grab that oversized lemon Danish they passed up on their first go-round. They could even grab two.
Their mothers would have been very pleased.
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