Day 14: cocksuckers

While it wasn’t love at first sight for me and Bora Bora – geez, I know, hard to please – I felt quite distressed to be leaving when the ship pulled out through the hole in the reef (helpfully dynamited open by the Americans during World War 2). No land again for five whole days. My chest constricts with panic each time I contemplate it. I’m sure between kids club, the cinema, the pool, endless buffets, “enhanced cleaning measures” due to an outbreak of norovirus (Sister has resolved to stop touching bannisters) and mime artists we’ll make it through in fine form. It’s just the thought that panics me. Lord knows how the First Fleeters survived those interminable months without shuffleboard and bingo to keep them entertained. Mind you, my mother had a natter to a couple who are doing a 72-day – what the? – version of the cruise. They’re sustaining themselves by bitching about the 200 kids on board, how badly behaved they are, how poorly dressed they are, how in their day … Hey, olds, suck it up. You’re the daft ones who booked a cruise during the Aussie school holidays. Who am I kidding? That couple is me in 20 years time. I haven’t stopped muttering about my fellow passengers since I boarded. My latest glare-fest? The dad who bootcamps his son and daughter every morning. Round and round the jogging track. Up and down and up and down and up and down the stairs. Endless sit-ups. Around 10am yesterday I heard the little boy forlornly ask “Can we have breakfast now, Daddy?” OK, I’m calling it: child abuse. At least I’ve signed up and paid for my abuse at bootcamp. I am waddling in pain and my arms feel like they’ve had yellow fever injections in both shoulders. Can’t raise them above my chest. Never managed to make those muscles sore with exercise before. Quite novel.PS Something no-one ever tells you about having kids is that you’ll be cleaning shit off their arses long after the nappies are gone. They’ll still be hollering for you to wipe their butts at age 5 and you’ll come running, if only to avoid enormous, unhygienic skid marks on their undies. Even when they finally decide you’re no longer required in the butt wiping process, you’ll still have to look at their shit. Because they never, ever bloody flush. And, since I am now sharing a very small cabin with two of them, it is driving me madder than it usually does.PPS I’m getting a teensy bit nervous about the norovirus break-out. They’ve started doing health announcements on the TV and the Sprogs were given a hygiene lecture in kids club yesterday afternoon. I’ve joined Sister in not touching banisters and I’m no longer rolling my eyes at the frenetic squirting of hand sanitizer by the maitre de before dinner every night.PPSS Sister and I are terrible people. We have been dissing The Threesome and they’ve turned out to very nice. Bought us numerous Cocksucking Cowboys last night. We are mean. We are horrible. We do not deserve free Cocksucking Cowboys. We’ve promised to repay them with champagne at dinner on Wednesday night (to plough through our remaining 17 bottles). But it is not enough to absolve our guilt. They must never know our last names. They must never Google us. They must never know about The Blog. PPPSS Threesome Wife turns out to be a funeral director. She has presided over many drowned children funerals. She is therefore very vigilant poolside. Conversations I do not wish to have poolside ….