That one time I survived the Titanic - TWICE

I don't like cruises.

Some friends invite me on a cruise and I reply, 'Awesome! Let's burn each other with matches while we're at it! Jump out of a plane without a parachute! That's fun too!' Let me explain.

Last summer, my mom and I were organizing the family photos. I came upon one photo (which I would upload if I knew how to use the scanner. I'm 23. Getting too old for this, people.) which had a very silly story behind it.

It's a picture of me on our Alaska cruise (zzzzzz) when I was 8. That would put us at 1997, the year Titanic came out. Although I didn't see the movie, I was plenty aware of the icy clutches of death that awaited the passengers.

So, on this cruise everyone is on the deck admiring the pretty H2O(s) doing this:

I see this and my sage eight-year-old imagination begins thinking of this:

I've always been an independent thinker. I raise my eyebrow and exclaim, 'Nuh uh. We're not doing this.' 

None of the adults are taking this business seriously. I must take control. I take one last look at my mommy, 'Nice knowin' ya. I'll carry on the family name' and hie it to the life boats. 

That's the photo of me. My back turned to the camera, my little legs carrying me to be the first in line to get off this death trap. Mommy has no idea what I am up to. I'm feeling pretty smug in my line. Let the fools take their pictures; I'm going to live. 

Turns out, we didn't hit an iceberg and we survived to see ominous glaciers (you'd think at some point a huge chunk would crash into the water and make it more interesting!). So you might imagine I would learn to trust the people in charge, right?

Wrong.

Fast forward a several years to my senior high school trip to Europe with a cruise in the Mediterranean. There will be Greek food, Greek dancing, and some Greek sinking. You heard me. 

Here I am, enjoying the gorgeous surroundings, about to get on the boat.

Wipe those smiles of your faces girls, 'cause someone has been sampling a little too much ouzo and is going to run the boat right into a reef. In fact, it might even make it to the news: http://voices.yahoo.com/cruise-ship-sinks-aegean-sea-288573.html

Well, that's not exactly what happened. It didn't sink during my trip. But the exact same boat sank 6 months after I was on it - which is pretty much the same thing in my book.

It'll take a lot of bribing, tricking, and false imprisonment to get me on a cruise again (the Caribbean cruise turned out alright, but that might have been a fluke). I've escaped Davy Jones' locker twice now and I'm not pushing my luck any more. 

You have to respect the sea.