Embarrassing Moments

I'm just back from a nine-day cruise. (I know: my life is tough.) And while away, between getting sun-poisoning and seeing shows and valiantly attempting not to gain the pound-per-day they say cruisers gain - hopefully with success! - in the back of my mind I knew I had to come back here and write about embarrassing moments, so I spared it a few minutes thought. I figured I'd write about some of the embarrassing things I've done on previous vacations - like mistaking a parking meter for a duck feeder in Iceland or asking where the war is instead of the train station in France - but now that I'm here, it's going to go a little differently.

The first night of the trip, the cruise director gave a speech where he said he'd learned to divide the world into two kinds of cruisers: those who would be happy no matter what happened and those who would be miserable no matter what happened. It was actually pretty profound stuff coming from a guy with slicked-back hair. And as the week wore on, I saw that he was right. Moreover, I made a conscious decision about which group I wanted to belong to. And even moreover than that, I realized I don't want any part of being the kind of embarrassing person who takes pride in being An Ugly American.

Think about what you are exporting in terms of your country, your family, yourself when you go out into the world.

I saw kids that I was embarrassed for - kids who were incapable of placing their own orders at meals and never bothered saying please or thank you to the people working insane hours just to make a living. I saw teens I was embarrassed for - teens who thought nothing of berating some poor waiter for bringing them the wrong drink. I saw adults I was embarrassed for - adults who did far too many embarrassing things to mention.

Do you ever think about people who work on cruise ships? What their lives must be like onboard ship? They leave home and family for 8-10 months at a time, working 10-12-15 hours a day, every day, during their term of service. Can you imagine how grim their choices must be back home in terms of work and opportunity, for them to think this is a good idea?

Who cares if you get the wrong drink? Who cares if you have to wait a half hour for your party to be called for dinner? I may be a jerk - and in so many ways, I am; no, really. I mistake parking meters for duck feeders and I ask about wars when I mean train stations, only serving to reinforce our French friends' opinions about what Americans are really focused on. But so what? You could not pay me enough to be rude to some person who's working their tail off just to scrape by in life.

I work hard. I work pretty much 365 days a year - really, even when I'm away, I still work. But I work at something I love and nowhere near as hard as the majority of the world. It's a privilege to be able to afford a vacation - even if you have to work twice as hard to pay for it! - rather than a right to act like a jerk and take advantage of those less fortunate than you.

Think about what you are exporting in terms of your country, your family, yourself when you go out into the world.

This message has been brought to you by Sun-Poisoning Girl.

Oh and, by the way, my new adult novel, BABY NEEDS A NEW PAIR OF SHOES, pubs tomorrow, so be sure to buy a copy so I can start paying off that trip.

Be well. Don't forget to write.

Tweet