Incompetent Abroad: The Preparation

I am a man who shrinks from adventure, particularly if it’s likely to imperil my physical comfort.  So it was with considerable trepidation I accepted their offer when my younger brothers—David and Roger—invited me to sail with them to England and back this Spring on the Queen Mary 2.  What if we collided with an iceberg or were boarded by pirates? I moaned. What if the ship sank and I found myself on a raft and forced to eat fish after 40 years of vegetarianism? Worries furrowed my brow like a scalpel.

Never one to mince words, Roger pointed out that since I’m 75 years old, rolling over in bed is probably as great a hazard to my safety as any of the nautical dangers I envisioned.  David merely shook his head, cracked open another beer and mumbled something about the prevalence of idiocy in our family. Both my brothers are seasoned world-travelers, equally at home in Cabin Creek or Katmandu.  I, on the other hand, have never been outside America’s borders, save for one massively disappointing weekend in Toronto some 30 years back. Our spouses soon realized that this fraternal undertaking was likely to get ugly and decided to stay home.  

Although I usually budget as much as $60 a year to update my wardrobe, my resolutely proper wife balked at the jeans and T-shirts I’d laid out for the trip and harangued me to a high-end haberdashery, where, within the space of an hour, I dropped enough cash to finance an interstate highway project or one of America’s smaller wars.  Nonetheless, I’m told that the Nehru jackets and parachute pants I walked out with really look good on me. 

Our ship departs Brooklyn Harbor on Tuesday, April 26.  Already I feel the earth slipping away.