Let’s break the pre-wedding hiatus on blogging with a series of post-wedding anecdotes on life aboard our honeymoon cruise ship: The Carnival Imagination.
Our first morning aboard the ship we awoke to the breakfast buffet: a sprawling multi-room affair with everything from apples to fried zucchini arrayed across seven separate buffet lines. Passengers happily piled eggs, waffles, sausages, and pastries onto plates to then eat in poolside lounge chairs, at tables overlooking the ocean, or in the air conditioned dining room.
While we waited in a line of six or seven people at the omelette station, another passenger came up behind us. After waiting a minute or so he erupted angrily, “This is ridiculous. There should be two people working here!” And he stormed off.
Yes. You’re standing atop a floating city in the middle of an ocean with a smorgasbord of breakfast foods free for the taking in a poolside buffet under the Caribbean sun, and what’s ridiculous is that you have to wait a minute for your custom-made omelette. As a friend recently remarked: this really is a first-world problem.
Cruise ships are the standard bearer for American gluttony: fat tourists squandering a fortune on drinks, food, and fuel romping about the ocean for sport. Fortunately, only one or two people seemed to fit the stereotype on our ship. When “Formal Night” came, we saw two thousand people walking the deck in ball gowns, suits, and in one case even a tuxedo. We may be gluttonous slobs, but we sure cleaned up nice when we wanted to.
While on a cruise I liken myself to a shark: I move through the water eating.
People have odd social behavior about food. Long, long ago in my college social psychology class, the professor recounted dining at a posh resort. There weren’t enough seats for everyone so people would congregate outside the dining room for first-come, first-served seating. It was very polite and civilized, amongst these very well-to-do people. But as the time neared for the doors to open, they’d move closer to the door, become less inclined to let people walk past, had a heightened awareness of their position in the line. In competition for food — of which there was plenty — they became very territorial.
Even with unlimited food, waiting for an omelette is a battle we fight instinctively.