The following words came to me after gazing for a few minutes into the azure-blue calm of the Adriatic Sea. I could write about how mesmerizing this perfect body of water is, or many other things I experienced or observed during my Mediterranean vacation — the charm of Venice, the fairy-tale feel of Dubrovnik, Croatia, or the pretentious yapper my wife, Betty, and I endured during an interminable evening meal, because seating for dinner was at the discretion of the cruise maitre d.'
But instead, I'll describe the mustard drill, the event I was warned about by a friend who'd vacationed on the same cruise line, an event Betty and I disregarded, mainly because we couldn't imagine what it entailed.
We'd just returned to the ship from an excursion to Barano, a picturesque fishing village near Venice lined with multicolored homes and cobblestone streets. It was about 2 p.m., and we were hot and hungry, anxious to jump into the shower and enjoy a late lunch. We decided to eat first, concerned that the on-ship cafe might close before we got there.
I was in the buffet line perusing hot peppers to place on my salad when the voice of the cruise director, with game-show host enthusiasm, announced, "All guests must report to their mustard stations for a required drill." In the same breath, he ordered the restaurant staff to shut down all food service immediately. Then Betty motioned for me to take my tray and follow her. On the way to the elevator, I spotted several fellow vacationers, young and old alike, strapping on bright orange life jackets and heading in different directions. If this was the drill our friend had mentioned, where was the mustard? And what form did it take? Its ominous presence must have surfaced somewhere to evoke the kind of reaction that made passengers decide to abandon ship.
When Betty and I entered our room with our lunch trays, the Wink Martindale of pleasure cruising reiterated his earlier message: "All passengers must report to their designated mustard stations." There went my plan to hole up in the bathroom with Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." This guy meant business. "All rooms will be checked," he emphasized. Yeah, checked, for deviants like me. Betty and I left our lunches, grabbed our life jackets from the closet, and headed out the door, hoping to outrun the mustard. I prayed we didn't encounter any ketchup or relish along the way.
The hallways were jammed with passengers. Suddenly I had a change of heart. I wanted to feel a part of this happening. But I struggled to put on my life jacket. Did the U-shaped portion go over my head or between my legs? Betty straightened me out as she pushed me in the right direction.
Before I knew it, I was seated in one of the many bars onboard, enjoying what remained of the oxygen that dissipates quickly when shared with 200 others in a confined space. I wish I could have handled it like the elderly traveler in front of me. He slumped down in his chair, tilted his head to the side, opened his mouth and snored. Instead, I checked my watch the same way many passengers followed the stock market on their BlackBerries, attentively and frequently. 15 minutes passed, and then we heard the cruise director again. The mustard had surely been vanquished. It was time for the all-clear signal.
Nope. It was the signal to exit the bar and stand shoulder-to-shoulder on deck. Was this an attempt to outsmart the mustard? I kept thinking about those innocents gathered in that movie theater, and a young Steve McQueen staring slack-jawed, unable to prevent the Blob from devouring his town. If necessary, who would the Celebrity Summit's Steve Andrews be? Would fire extinguishers be as effective against mustard as they had been against rampaging Jell-O?
Another 15 minutes passed. I was still wearing my heat-retaining life jacket in the blast furnace called northeastern Italy. Then I heard that familiar upbeat voice again, now surely ready to give the all-clear signal. But no. Now that we were all together, like a bunch of cocktail franks in an oven, waiting to get smothered by the mustard monster, we were reminded not to throw cigarette butts overboard, to familiarize ourselves with the ecologically friendly practices of the "Save the Waves" campaign, and to refrain from hanging wet clothes on railings, because the aforementioned butts, if thrown from decks, could cause a fire. There are 2,500 defenseless tourists starring in their own horror movie, and this guy's worried about flying cigarette butts?
Finally, he stopped talking, only to start again, this time to ask our patience while the message was repeated in Spanish. Soon, though, Betty and I were swimming with our fellow salmon up staircases and back to our cabin. Along the way, we passed the bar where we'd been detained earlier, and a sign I hadn't noticed before. It read, "Muster Station B," the letter that corresponded to the one on our life jackets.
Oh ... right ... Betty and I had been mustered, not mustard-ed, for a ship-evacuation drill.
But as I sat in the air-conditioned comfort of my room, eating my now soggy salad, I couldn't decide which of those fates was worse.
John Edmondson is a teacher in Hampstead. His column appears Wednesdays in the Derry News.
