The Stupids Go On A Cruise

Remember James Marshall’s children’s book series about a family aptly named “The Stupids”? They celebrate utterly ridiculous, silly, and stupid things—like sleeping with their feet on their pillows, bathing without any water because an empty bathtub won’t ruin their clothes, and celebrating Stanley and Petunia’s bad report cards by inviting all their relatives to a costume party.

Here’s my version of a Stupid adventure:

One day Mr. and Mrs. Stupid booked an exotic seven-day cruise. They had never been on a cruise before. Stupidly, they chose Carnival cruise lines because Norwegian and Royal Caribbean were not cruising during the only week the Stupids could go on vacation (and because they had miniature golf on the top deck). But Mr. Stupid was determined to do something different for once. They flew to Tampa and then sailed to Cozumel, Mexico; Belize City; Mahogany Bay, Honduras; and Grand Cayman.

Mrs. Stupid was too busy working for the Central Utah Writing Project to read any of the fine print on the travel itinerary whatsoever. If it weren’t for Mr. Stupid, she wouldn’t have packed any formal wear at all—which came in handy, especially since there were two formal evenings of dining on her cruise, instead of one, like her friends told her to expect. Once on the boat, Mrs. Stupid was glad to see that she had overdressed for the cruise because she brought a one-piece bathing suit. Everybody else was wearing bikinis—whether they weighed 30 pounds, or 300.

On the first day at sea, the Stupids met the couples they’d be forced to dine with for the next six nights: Freddie and Ashley were celebrating a successful long-distance relationship (they made it through one year of living 2,375 miles apart in Boston and Las Vegas). Freddie played rugby and did something with computers and Ashley graduated from MIT, did something for the military, and was so physically fit that she could bench press Freddie with one arm. Walter and Angela were on their honeymoon, hours after getting married in a pirate ship, dressed as a Disneyfied Jack Sparrow and a cross between Moll Flanders and the Mad Hatter (they wore their pirate garb on formal evening). Freddie and Ashley and Walter and Angela’s favorite conversation topics revolved around everything they could remember about their respective drunken escapades, and regularly included their token phrase, "f@$% yeah!" The Stupids were thrilled to have so little in common with their new friends!

Mrs. Stupid ate too many cheeseburgers on the second day at sea and got seasick.

In Mexico, the Stupids hiked all 128 steps up Nohoch Mul, the only Mayan structure fully accessible to tourists. Mr. Stupid took lots of pictures and was proud of Mrs. Stupid for not falling down the pyramid—because there were no handrails or safety features to protect uncoordinated climbers like her. One misplaced step would have sent her tumbling, the first in a trail of Dominoes, into the line of people carefully descending the pyramid in front of her.

In Belize, the Stupids went snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. This was a stupid idea, since Mrs. Stupid hates salt water and can’t swim (even stupider, the Stupids signed up for scuba diving in Grand Cayman). Mrs. Stupid thought she would die when she took her first breath through her nose in Belize. But Mr. Stupid was patient and waited for her to get the hang of it. She got so good at breathing through her mouth that snorkeling became her new favorite thing to do. The Stupids saw fish with neon-pink stripes and managed to avoid crushing any coral with their flippers. Mr. Stupid was delighted however, to find a nasty sunburn on his back—in all the places where Mrs. Stupid supposedly rubbed in sunscreen.

In Honduras, the Stupids took a boat ride to a private island with 50 bazillion parrots. It rained the whole time and blew some kind of unidentifiable hard fruit out of the palm trees that hit Mr. Stupid in the head while he was watching leopards from the island’s animal rehabilitation program cough up ten-pound hairballs. Mrs. Stupid learned that the Mayans regularly used hallucinogenic drugs absorbed through enemas.

The Stupids went scuba diving in Grand Cayman. Mrs. Stupid thought she was going to die because she wasn’t sure if she had agoraphobia, one of the things the scuba instructor asks you about in the pre-scuba training session, and which requires you to refrain from scuba diving if indeed you have it. But the Stupids found that neither of them suffered from agoraphobia, and they commemorated a successful scuba session with unlimited ice cream on the lido deck.

Stupidly, Mrs. Stupid brought these two books to read on the cruise: 101 Places Not to See Before You Die, and The Help. The former is a travelogue of things to avoid seeing and doing in life because they are unhealthy, death-defyingly risky, a total rip off, or stupidly anticlimactic. The Help is about the unfair working conditions of black maids who worked for white families in the 60s in Jackson, Mississippi. All the bad vibes made Mrs. Stupid feel guilty for being an American capitalist on a boat with a crew of 900, the majority of which were Indonesian, Filipino, Indian, and Croatian who apparently could not be happier to clean other people’s messes for $70 + tips each month.

The Stupids’ favorite part of the cruise was waiting to see what towel animal would appear on their bed after dinner.