You know what I mean. We have all been in a situation where we just don’t “fit”, right? We have all felt like that guy over there with the BIG brown shoes.
The last time I felt that way was on a family cruise a few years ago. We were EXTREMELY fortunate to have been taken on a cruise by my parents in celebration of mom’s 80th birthday. Wow – what a nice present for us! First-class treatment from beginning to end – we felt like royalty!
Our Bermuda cruise was filled with such wonderful memories from karaoke night where Alexandra wowed (even with a cold) the MC, participants, and audience with her rendition of “Don’t Rain On My Parade, to “Dancing with The Stripes” where both girls got to participate and had a blast, to just being able to spend quality time with the family. It was shortly after this cruise that dad’s health declined rapidly. It is nice to remember happy, healthy times.
The ship was HUGE, a real floating city, as most cruise ships are, but for those directionally-challenged like myself, it can present a problem when trying to get from one place to another.
I FINALLY figured out where I was going just as it was time to disembark. C’est la vie, besides getting lost in a casino wasn’t all that bad.
Now for the BIG brown shoes analogy. We are what I refer to as “regular” people. We are not rich, we are not poor, we are not homeless, we do not live in mansions, we don’t travel much, yet we have been places, we like to dress up, yet we are also comfortable in sweats, we like to eat at expensive restaurants and do so occasionally yet we also eat fast food. I think you get my drift.
So when we arrived back at our room after eating one of the MANY meals served on the ship (there is another meal served every five minutes on a cruise – all one does is EAT!
I am STILL full from years ago!), we were rather surprised to see an envelope had been stuffed under our door that contained an invitation to have dinner at the Captain’s table! HUH? Us? We didn’t even pay for our cruise. It was a gift from my parents.
It must have been a mistake. They must have meant to send it to my parents who had gone on WAY more cruises than we had. Nope – we read it – and it clearly was for US even though they had David’s name wrong calling him “Mr. David”.
But then again, the invitation could have also been half for my dad as his name was also David, and therefore “Mr. David” could have been referring to him.
The only other “Ms. Weishaars” were my daughters and they were traveling solo, so they had to have meant me. We concluded after careful consideration that this invitation was indeed for us.
David was thrilled – I was more like “I would rather have dinner with my FAMILY” than a group of total strangers who are more than likely very pretentious.
I don’t feel comfortable around people who think they are better than me because they have more money or more expensive toys than I do. OK, I am being kind. I do not LIKE PRETENTIOUS PEOPLE! I have this intense desire to smack them silly in the face – which of course I can’t do… or can I? 🙂
Now back to those brown shoes…No we didn’t wear shoes 10 times larger than our foot size but that IS exactly how I felt at that table. The couples spoke about all the different cruises they had been on, their vacation homes in the south of France, their second homes in various warm climate expensive areas, their luxury cars, diamonds, etc.
The only thing I could think of was that bologna was on sale the last time I was at Shoprite. Somehow I didn’t think that would impress anymore, nor was I looking to.
So besides drinking more wine than my body was accustomed to, whispering in Dave’s ear a few times, and smiling and nodding, that evening was most definitely a great example of being in a place where everyone else was “wearing a tuxedo and I was wearing big brown shoes”.
Note: When I was looking for pictures from our cruise, I found one in David’s Facebook photos of two lovely couples in his Bermuda Cruise album. I have NO idea who the hell they are! I am guessing they are two of the great friends we made that night at the Captain’s table.
Fraud On The High Seas
Hint: If you are filling out an application for a cruise line and they ask how many cruises you have been on, more than likely they mean how many of THEIR cruises you have been on!