Chelsea Handler - My Horizontal Life - A Collection of One-Night Stands

Some of the crew members were wearing blue shirts with the Carnival logo on them and some crew members were just wearing their own clothing with a name tag and a Carnival Cruise pin. Some had their shirts tucked in, some didn't. The crew looked completely disinterested, almost mentally off somehow, and there were framed photographs on the wall of more disinterested employees, all of which were crooked. Most of the crew members didn't even look eighteen. I began to have serious concerns about the kind of operation they were running.

Dumb Dumb grabbed my arm and said, "Let's just go to our room, we have a suite." I couldn't respond because I was still in a state of shock, overwhelmed by a disgust that can only be associated with deep disappointment or a keen sense of smell.

We went to our cabin, which meant hiking up four flights of stairs and down a hallway that was barely wide enough to fit one person-who was walking sideways. Where was this piece of shit boat when they were filming The Love Boat? We opened our door to find a pair of bunk beds and a porthole with glass so thick it was impossible to decipher whether the blue on the other side was the ocean or the sky.

"Is that our ocean view?" I asked Dumb Dumb as I tripped over the threshold. Apparently, we were moving.

"Oh, my gosh," she said. "This is pretty bad." She started to laugh. I did not.

"I can't stay here," I said. "I can't do it."

"It's not that bad," she said. "We can't leave. The ship has already left the dock."

"We'll have to swim to shore," I told her.

"Stop it! It'll be like a great big adventure!" she said.

I needed to find Captain Stubing right away-and Isaac and the doc. Where was that coked-up whore, Julie? Those were my peeps. I wanted to stay in their big, grand bedrooms with king-sized beds and a maid service.

After I regained my composure, I realized it was time to formulate a plan. Step one was to start drinking immediately. I was always more logical when I drank. Step two was to devise a means of escape.

We dropped our bags and I went to the bathroom to check in with myself. The bathroom was about four feet by four feet with a toilet that you had to step over to get into the shower. I stared intently at this absurd setup, trying to figure out where to put my legs while peeing as there were only about two inches between the front of the toilet and the bathroom wall. I opted to put my feet in the shower as I sat sideways on the toilet seat. I called Dumb Dumb in so she could witness what this cruise was really about.

"Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! How are we supposed to go to the bathroom?" she asked.

"Is this your fucking suite} This is what I paid nine hundred dollars for?"

"I am so sorry. I'll pay for my end. You don't have to pay for me," she said.

"Good. I'd like it in cash," I told her.

We left our "suite" to go check out the ship and get some drinks in us. Dumb Dumb picked up an activities pamphlet, which informed us that the casino would open as soon as we left the California border. Things were looking up. Gambling was a favorite pastime of mine, and combined with being on water, memories of my favorite movie, Porky's, flooded into my brain. We went to exchange our money for gambling chips and waited on line behind a woman who was wearing two fanny packs around her waist and missing a front tooth.

After that, we made our way up to the Lido Deck, where we checked out the pool situation and got some drinks at the bar. There was a man sitting at the bar with hair down to his waist and wearing cutoff black jeans. The problem with his hair was that the better part of his head was bald, and the long stringy hair that remained was coming from behind his ears.

I went up to the only bald man with split ends I had ever seen and asked him how to get a drink around here.

"I'll get it for you," he replied.

"Do you work here?" I asked.

"Sometimes," was his response.

Dumb Dumb grimaced, but I pressed on. "I'll take a Ketel One with anything. Two of them."

"Where's the pool?" I asked our bartender. He pointed behind us toward a circular tank that looked like something out of Sea World, except it had no water and was covered with a decorative red, white, and blue tarp. "Is that it?" I asked him.

"That's one of 'em. There's about four more all over, but it's off season so they're all closed up."

"Off season?" asked Dumb Dumb.

"Yes ma'am. November to February," he said as he handed us our drinks in plastic Dixie cups.

"Now do you want to swim to shore?" I asked Dumb Dumb.

We thanked Split Ends for our drinks before I realized they were made out of cheap vodka and Kool-Aid, which Dumb Dumb of course loved, because it reminded her of nursery school.

There was no one else on the Lido Deck, so we made our way down a couple of decks. When I spotted my third mullet, I told Dumb Dumb that we should just go back to our rooms and sleep.

"We should at least lie out," she said.

"It's not even sixty degrees out," I told her.

"That's when you get the best color," she told me.

We got our bathing suits and a dinner menu and went back up to the Lido Deck. Split Ends was still there. I asked him for a real vodka in a real glass but he told me they served only plastic except at dinner. He ignored my comment about the real vodka.

"When is dinner?" Dumb Dumb asked.

"You can eat at seven or at nine in the formal dining room," he said.

"Is the formal dining room formal?" I asked.

"Hell, yeah," he said. "No shorts, no sneakers, no half shirts."

"No problem," I said.

It was too windy to get into our bathing suits so we just sat on our plastic chaise longues in front of the tarped-up pool/ tank and stared at the sky. I thought about taking the tarp off and diving in headfirst; I'm sure I wouldn't have been the first. I tried calling 911, but my cell phone wasn't getting any reception. This was a disaster. My positive attitude had long since joined the witness protection program, but I tried to stay calm.

Dumb Dumb asked me which dinner seating I wanted to go to and I told her the seven o'clock one, because I hoped by nine to be unconscious. Apparently the casino wouldn't open until the next day (big surprise), so we just continued drinking. We passed out on our chairs or, as I like to say, put ourselves down for a nap, sometime after one and woke up to find ourselves surrounded by seagulls feeding on the peanuts left on the bar. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, someone announced over the loudspeaker that a shuffleboard contest was starting on the Lido Deck in five minutes. It was time to move on.

We flipped through the boat's guide of idiotic activities and decided to play bingo in the Carnival Room at five. We sat next to a couple who told us they were getting married on the boat. This news sent Dumb Dumb into a tizzy.

"Married! That is sooo romantic. Where did you guys meet? How did you propose?" I wanted to remind Dumb Dumb that there was nothing romantic about getting married on a Carnival cruise or having matching ZZ Top shirts, but I didn't want to hurt their feelings.

This cruise was also going to be their honeymoon because the woman couldn't get more than a week off from the power plant where she worked. That was the last thing I heard before I yelled, "Bingo!"

"Shut up! Shut up! You got it?!" yelled the woman. The master of ceremonies pointed me out in the crowd and I stood up as everyone applauded.

"Just kidding," I said and walked out.

I was getting very drunk and needed fresh air. Dumb Dumb followed me, but I told her I needed to be alone. "Are you going to jump?" she asked.

"No, I'm not going to jump, but I need to eat soon. I'm wasted."

"Well, stop drinking," she told me.

"That's not really an option."