Day 15: slimy pollywogs

We crossed the Equator yesterday. There was a big ceremony. King Neptune attended. Passengers were voluntarily humiliated at his feet  – commanded to get down on their knees and have spaghetti and tomato sauce thrown over them. Apparently it’s a traditional sailor-type activity, I’m assuming far more inappropriate hazing usually happens at sea. But this is a family ship. Bobby the cruise director explained that sailors who’ve already crossed the Equator are called trusty shellbacks, while newbies are called slimy pollywogs. Pollywogs must be “tested” to ensure they are tough enough to endure long, rough periods at sea. Men are strange creatures. I’m getting tired. This not lifting a finger caper is exhausting. I’ve been using the lifts instead of the stairs. I laze in bed until 8.30am every morning (it’d be later except for the nasty business of 9am boot camp). My lethargy extends to undie washing, cannot be shagged. I’ve coughed up another $25 to have someone else wash 26 pairs of dirty knickers for me. I rinsed out my own gym gear, though, as it requires hand-washing (the hide, after charging $80 for the leggings – they saw me coming) and was starting to reek. I’m feeling slightly nervous about my final bill at the end of the cruise. It’s a cashless ship, you just hand over your room card when you want something and they rack it up on your tab. Dangerous. The Threesome are up to $2200. Fark. $125 of it on washing. Threesome is hoping the husband wins a cash prize in the karaoke finals tonight to offset their debts. We’re shouting Threesome lots of champagne at dinner to offset our guilt over mirthing – new word, I made it up – them in The Blog. I’m not sure it will be enough. I may have to ask the ship’s priest about a hair shirt. In happier news, it’s only four days until we see Husband again. Hurrah! I made a $7-a-minute ship-to-shore call to him yesterday. Couldn’t hear a bloody thing, just intermittent “hello?” “hello?” noises. We’ve moved out of Tahiti satellite range and won’t pick up another until we near Hawaii. So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, you’ll know what’s happened. Fortunately I’ve heard Brad and Ange are engaged, would have hated to miss that anti-climactic bit of goss.Last night’s entertainment: piña coladas and a ventriloquist telling sex jokes. Sprog 1 rates it the second best show of the cruise after the hypnotist. She wants his DVD. She’s not getting it (I’m also hoping she didn’t get it) (ah, those Bill Clinton drycleaning jokes, they never get tired).