They were on their honeymoon, too. They had been sharing a condo near Central Park, but had just bought a new home in White Plains. Their reception had been at Tavern on the Green in Manhattan. At one point Melissa commented that she had hyphenated her last name when they got married. This served as a symbol that they were equal partners in their marriage, and that neither one of them was above the other. I had simply commented that I needed to change my name to Lefleur, to reflect who was the real boss of the family. Marilyn laughed and agreed with me.
"What about you, Cal? What do you do?", he asked. It was still only the middle of the main course, and I was expecting these two to keep on yapping about themselves until at least dessert.
"It's Carl."
"Sorry about that." No, he really wasn't.
"Nothing quite that exciting. I jump out of airplanes and kill people.", I answered.
Melissa and Harrison stopped talking and stared at me like I had just taken a dump on the table. Marilyn giggled and punched me in the shoulder. "You're awful!" She turned to them. "He's not really that bad."
Harrison looked very confused at that. "What do you mean?"
"I'm a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg.", I answered smiling.
"You're a soldier?", asked Melissa. The look on her face was priceless, like she had just stepped in a pile of dogshit and couldn't figure out how to wipe it off her shoe. 'You're a soldier?' came out sounding like 'You're a child molester?'
"You bet. I'm a platoon leader in a battery of 105s, 1st of the 319th. Airborne all the way!", I said with a grin.
"Oh my!" She really didn't know what to say to that.
Harrison did. "Oh, so you're an officer then?"
I nodded. "Second Lieutenant."
Well, an officer was at least somebody they might deign to converse with, although I was a junior officer. "So you must have gone to college then. Where was that? West Point?"
"Not quite. I was ROTC at Rensselaer, up in Troy. That's where I met Marilyn, at a party there."
"Oh, like a scholarship, then." I nodded and smiled, curious how they could insult me next. "You couldn't get any other scholarships?"
I damn near burst out laughing at that, but it was Marilyn who rescued me. My wife is not all that much in favor of the military, but she is very proud of me, military or not. She laid her hand on mine and squeezed it, probably because she thought I might punch this asshole. Then she said, "Oh, no, Carl could have gotten plenty of scholarships. He actually got his doctorate when he was 21." I shrugged modestly.
They had both stopped eating and were staring at me like I had grown a second head. "You have a doctorate?", he asked.
"Applied mathematics."
"Well, what in the world did you become a soldier for, then?"
I just smiled. "It's a family tradition to serve and protect our country and her people. My father was Ivy League and served in the Navy. We even protect the yuppies and assholes." Marilyn really squeezed my hand at that, but she had nothing to fear. I was having way too much fun with these two. I just started working on my dinner again. I had herb crusted lamb chops and they were simply outstanding!
Both Melissa and Harrison gave me weak smiles, and then excused themselves, stating they needed to get back to their cabin for a second. I smiled and stood and shook their hands again, and Marilyn waved good-bye, although there was a look of sheer hatred on her face.
I smiled at my wife and lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it. "What a lovely couple! So polite and friendly!", I commented to her.
Marilyn's expression at that was priceless. "Are you kidding me? They're, they're ... awful! I can't even talk about them without getting mad!"
I grinned at her and nibbled my lamb chop. Marilyn hates lamb, so we never had it at home, but I just love it! "Really? Tell me more!", I teased.
"You think this is funny, don't you?"
"No, I think it's hilarious! Those two are the biggest pair of self-centered jackasses I've seen in years! Wait until tomorrow, when I show up in my dress uniform!"
"Well, I think they were just awful. Can we get a different table?"
I shrugged. "I'll check for you. I thought they were funny."
"Hmmpph!"
I smiled at my wife. "They're you and me, you know."
"What are you talking about?', she asked indignantly.
"If it was up to my mother, they would be us. I'd be a professional, married to a professional, and looking down on the lesser breeds like she does. Think about it."
"You're just awful!", she said, laughing.
"I don't know. Have you ever considered dyeing your hair blonde? Like Melissa, you know? Maybe Mom would like you a little more."
"When dessert comes, you're going to be wearing it.", she laughed.
"Maybe my mother was right, after all.", I sighed.
That got her to splutter at me, but neither of us wasted our dessert, which was cheesecake. I commented to her, "I am definitely going to have to do some running tomorrow, or they're going to have to wheel me off this barge!"
"Even on vacation?"
"Run with me."
She gave me an interesting smile. "I can think of lots more interesting things to do in the morning."
"That's also a possibility. I have to say, that's also a definite possibility. Did you have anything specific in mind? I mean, really, really specific?"
"You're just a dirty old man.", Marilyn laughed.
"I'm a dirty young man. Totally different. My father, now he's a dirty old man. He and Mom..." I just waggled my eyebrows at her.
"Gross! I don't even want to think about that!"
After dinner, I stopped at the maitre de's desk near the front of the restaurant and asked if it was possible to change tables. He looked at me curiously, and I explained that there was a little difference in personalities with our tablemates. He, in turn, said he already had a request from them for the same thing. I just smiled and said I would leave it in his hands, and I would remember it at the end of the week. You don't tip on the boat at each meal, but at the end of the week, you give tips in envelopes, to the restaurant staff and the room staff.
Then we went down to the theater for the evening show. That first night, the show was more in the way of an orientation. The cruise director did a little show and tell about the Sun Viking, and gave us answers to all the usual questions, like when is the midnight buffet. (At midnight, that's why they call it the midnight buffet!)
The Seventies is when cruising as a vacation really took off in America. The Love Boat had just started a year or two before, and it depicted a cruise ship off the Mexican and California coasts, where people fell in love, and the crew had all sorts of romantic and hilarious moments. It was incredibly popular at the time, and ran well into the Eighties. Real cruises have very little in common with The Love Boat, but that's not to say they weren't just as enjoyable. Still, the cruise director had to work to fix some misperceptions.
Some of them simply weren't discussed. On the television show, the whole crew was white Americans, with a few blacks or foreigners thrown in for balance. Real cruise ships are totally different. Royal Caribbean was pretty typical. All the officers and bridge staff and engineering staff were Western European (the shipping line was Norwegian and they only hired ex-Norwegian Navy captains to run their ships). All the waiters and busboys and cleaning people were Asian, and if they only made peanuts, it still beat what they would make in a slum in Manila or Jakarta. Finally, all the entertainment and cruise staff were Americans, usually a bunch of Hollywood and Broadway wannabes. The cruise director was actually a standup comic.