Drink and Get Diapered

There’s a jaunty amateurish quality to the daily announcements on board ship that made me smile every day on this last cruise. It's as if they were written by people new to the language.“Like money? Like to be Pampered?”  The author of these squibs wrote in one paragraph, capitalizing the verb form of the word ‘pamper' as if it were a  proper noun; as if to say Here's a nice kind of onboard fun: have someone diaper you!It goes on: “Then then you’ll loooooove what we have in store for you.” (Yep: six o’s in the words ‘love.’) “Play 7 Huge (more upper case mania) games on one card giving away over $1,000. You couldn’t beat this deal if you tried, not that you’d want to!”But .... you WOULD want to beat it if you could, wouldn’t you? Beat a good deal with a better deal. It doesn’t make sense but there is something sort of dear about it anyway.Here's another: “Step right up because we have all the lights, bells and buzzers to make you feel right at home! “ it says regarding a night at the casino I suppose.. But do we HAVE  lights bells and buzzers at home? Should we? What are we missing?Ah but isn't that the question at the root of all advertising. People can't bear to think that they lack a thing that everyone else has. How else to account for all those Pet Rocks we bought a few decades ago?I bought a few things: some cheap jewelry and a pretty satin evening bag... A Deep conditioning treatment at the salon in Deck Nine and about 35 glasses of wine... I'm not immune to suggestion, far from it.Below a picture of the last time I was on a  ship as merry as this last one.They had Toga Night and it was right there in the Daily announcement: No Sheet No Eat it said.. They even supplied us with the requisite linens.Here are Old Dave and I with my Cousin Sheila and my sister Nan. We were all on this cruise too...   Looking at the four of us you have to wonder: can getting diapered be very far off?