Manners Miss

Andy and I don't get out too often. At least, we don't get out too often together. There is a lot to do and see to up here on the Mountain and, it's usually just easier to hang out at home or do an early, local night out than it is to find someone to come put everyone away and "secure the perimeter," as they say. While we enjoy doing our own things, too, we do try to make a point to head out on the town as a pair when there is something to celebrate. This is usually once or twice a year. And we really don't mind that.

Our third anniversary is on August 21st and, because I will be hard at work at in-service and Andy will be harder at work battling the scourge that is the cluster fly on the exact date, we decided to celebrate the weekend before. I had booked passage on a sunset cruise on the Spirit of Ethan Allen, a well-known vessel that has been taking folks around Lake Champlain for years, and we decided to make hay on what might be the last hot and sunny, perfect Vermont weekend we both have time to enjoy. After a stroll down Church Street, dinner and drinks people-watching, and some peeks at the gorgeous boats docked at the Burlington Boathouse as part of the antique boat show, we got in line to board the Spirit and enjoy some sights and what was shaping up to be a potentially gorgeous sunset.

Had my two-hours-older self been at the dock, I would have said to the smiling self in the picture above, "Run! At all costs, do NOT get on this boat."

But we boarded and found a pair of chairs facing the lake and sun on the rear deck. (Aft? Starboard? Who knows...) A tidy family of five, stylish parents and three adult children, and a chic couple occupied the space to our right. In front of us were two young couples, a pair of friends, and an extended family with two well-mannered kids who could have been in my class. The waitress busied herself taking orders for dinner and drinks and we nestled into our chairs, baking in the sun and awaiting the imminent, cool lake breezes.

And we sat.

And we sat.

And the waitress walked by us several dozen times, never stopping to ask us for a drink order. Hmm...

And we sat.

Finally, the safety announcements blared over the loudspeaker and we figured we were shoving off momentarily.

And we sat.

And a few more folks boarded, dragging dining room chairs onto the deck, creating a perimeter. Then a few more folks arrived. The perimeter grew dense and thick with brandished SmartPhones snapping shots of us, still parked at the dock. The waitress, her bun starting to loosen, scuttled around grabbing drink orders from everyone but us. The ferry came through, blocking our exit. More selfies and family-sies from the SmartPhone snappers, cheers from the wedding party upstairs, echoed by many of the guests in what Andy had already taken to calling "Stewage Class" (a portmanteau of "steerage" and "sewage"), and a heavy sigh of relief from the folks under the stairs to our immediate left when it was announced that they (and, by default, we) were sitting in a designated outdoor smoking area. Did I mention no drinks yet? Not even a water? Which we were surrounded by?

And then the captain gave the order that we were ready to go. It was too late for us to debark and I didn't want to give up our seats, which would be our saving grace. We were in it to win it and it was going to be a nice night! ... Right?

Pulling out of the dock and past the Boathouse, as we made our way through the gap in the breakwater that would put us on the open waves of the broad lake, I relaxed a bit. The waitress would likely get to us; the novelty of seeing Burlington from the water would fade and the screen of SmartPhones that were providing our ViewFinder-like experience would dissipate; folks would take a seat or lean against the rails and tuck into quiet conversations and their grilled cheese sandwiches. Most of all, Andy and I would enjoy a great sunset and a nice commemoration of our time together so far.

It was a fart that snapped me out of my reverie. Talk about things I never thought I would ever see myself type... But yes, the man in the walking-length denim shorts and white knee socks in the smoking section to the left of me, who was craning over the rail to ogle a boat (or, more likely, something simpler like "fire" or "the wheel") broke wind in the audible range of his fellow passengers and didn't miss a beat. A few seconds later, his wife handed him a camera announcing, "Are you going to take any pictures or are you just going to fart in my face?" These are adults, mind you, who paid $30 a head to ride around on a boat and drink $9 blender drinks, yet somehow, I was transported to the back of a public school bus.

Elsewhere, my own personal back-of-the-bus left the PG-rated confines of potty jokes, when the horror of the Fart Heard 'Round the Deck caused me to turn my head in disgust and face to the right. Surely, the chic family would have taken a break from their selfies and family photo ops by now and they would all be sitting in their deck chairs. I would now be able to see the Adirondacks and open water and all would be right with the world.

Wrong again. The selfie and famly-sies photo shoot had taken an interesting turn and one that would help me understand that the male child wasn't part of the family (unless the family takes pictures wherein the brother's hand is inching up the back end of his sister's skirt). Mom and Dad quickly got in on the action, but were discreet enough to shy from the paparazzi when Mom put her hand up the leg of Dad's shorts, prompting Andy to say, "Do you think they're gonna go for it right on the deck?" Now, I should be fair and say that the family that played together had been well oiled with a few each of the fruity frozen drinks the eager-to-serve-everyone-but-us waitress was slinging around the deck. As we got farther away from shore, I started to feel like our server was even averting her eyes as she passed by us, so as not to even have to think about giving me the glass of wine that might help make the night a less-than-total loss. She could have been trying not to watch the over-50 floor show but, a drink on a boat with my hubby would have been nice. GIVE ME THAT AT LEAST, WOMAN!

The sun was setting on the other side of the boat by now, but as bad as life was on the deck, I didn't want to give up our seats. People were swarming to the deck for photos by this point and I knew that the second I scooted to the other side to catch the pink sky, I would spend the last hour of the night being jostled in the standing room only section of what Andy was now affectionately calling "The Floating Wal-Mart." I did relinquish my seat for a moment, however, to head to the restroom for a costume change. I thought that if I put on the change of clothes I had brought and put my hair in a ponytail, the waitress wouldn't recognize me as the woman she had been avoiding all night and finally pay us some attention.

In the bathroom, I got the first sight of manners I had seen all night. A woman was quietly and covertly feeding her baby and I slipped in for the costume change and then back out without so much as a fart.

Or a burp in the style of Barney from "The Simpsons," which was the sound emanating from The People Under the Stairs when I returned in my disguise. The smoking folks to the left had moved from fruity frozen drinks to bottled beer and the gas was now traveling north. Better than it being southbound, I suppose, but still not exactly what I want to hear whispering in my ear on this romantic night. Seeing stacks of glasses on the tables and floors around us, I decided that enough was enough and, banking on my disguise and all the good manners I could muster, I raised a polite finger (no, not the middle one), caught the eye of the now blatantly-frazzled waitress, and asked if we could maybe get a beer and a wine. "Of course," she said. "Would you like some water, too?" She had come alive and recognized us as citizens of this asylum on a keel. We were now in the clique of folks who got service. Huzzah!

She came back onto the deck three or four times before we got our drinks and then we never saw her again (until it was time to dole out the tabs, naturally). Meanwhile, the farting-burping-smoking section stirred and, having been ousted from their original seats by the railing, took up residence literally under the stairs about eight inches away from me. All at once, as if being conducted by the Seiji Ozawa of the Carcinogenic Philharmonic, the four of them lit up, adjusting their tangle of limbs so that they could still take drags and not bang their heads on the ascending rungs. They were promptly joined by two young women who announced, "Hey, us smokers have to stick together, huh?" while lighting business ends of the most potent clove cigarettes I have ever secondarily inhaled in my life. "They have three times as much nicotine as regular cigarettes," one of them explained. Great.

The secondhand smoke headache and contact high was peaking and I envied Goldie Hawn when Edward Hermann threw her off the yacht in the movie "Overboard." Still, I realized that we were turning around and making our way back to the docks. By now, Andy had begun to amuse himself by looking not only at the scene that surrounded us, but at the faces that scene inspired me to make. "This place is just so weird," he kept chuckling. Weird didn't begin to describe the half of it. And weird I can handle. What I couldn't handle, after an hour-and-a-half on the Good Ship Hell on Earth was reaching for my water glass and finding a stubbed out Virginia Slim floating in it.

"Get me off this ^$*&%@#!$ boat," I snarled.

The lights of Burlington and buzz from the Waterfront, which was hosting the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival, started to come into visual and audio focus. We gave up our seats and headed to the bough to count the seconds until we were on dry land and away from all of these... these people.

The reward for our time away was a fairly sweet one. As we pulled up to the Boathouse, we were able to get a free mini-concert by The Black Crowes. Now, The Crowes are a band I like, but I don't love them, else we would have been at the concert and not in the nautical equivalent of the DMV. Nonetheless, I have never been so happy to hear The Black Crowes in all of my entire life. They heralded the end of the worst cruise in the history of cruises, boats, and water and it was only then that I knew it was time to line up at the front door and wait to debark.

I didn't kiss the shore when we got off the boat. But I wanted to.

And next year? For #4? We're staying home.