All This For a Mere Thousand Dollars

This day was our one chance to see Mexico. We were just yards away, pulled up at Cozumel and I was definitely going ashore - just as soon as I could drag myself away from Nan and Sheil and this big floating bathtub of an onboard pool anyway.

Back in the morning we had breakfast with six strangers and I was feeling pretty good so I said “Hey, Mexico you guys! Let’s go buy all the prescription drugs we can think of! Can you do that really?”

“Sure can,” my sister Nan said. “Just about anything you want.” “A few years ago we took this cruise just for the birth control pills!” said a cute young thing in a plaid headscarf and two little pigtails. “We had to keep walking and walking and ended up trying three different shops because they’d each only sell us fourth months’ worth.”

“Yup,” smiled her husband, a beefy guy with a shaved head. “And how’d that work out for ya?" “She has six kids now,” he joked.

“No it worked out great!” she said, slapping his arm. ‘Course then he goes and gets a vasectomy anyway.” “OK! Too much sharing!” said Mr. Beef and when the meal ended and a few hours had swooned by I did go ashore, and saw many people from our cruise ship and other cruise ship too at an open-air saloon. They were writhing in and out of doors in conga-line fashion and at a certain point in the line attempting a drunken limbo move, drinking a swig of booze poured straight in their mouths by a giant employee and immediately afterward receiving a hard slap on the fanny with a wooden paddle.

I’m so glad I didn’t try going on that rules-filled lecture-based Galapagos Island cruise instead, you know? Not only is this one like a tenth of the price but in terms of sheer zoology Carnival Cruise lines makes those guys look sick.