‘Let it flow, it floats back to you’*

Imagine being crammed into close quarters with a lot of hot, stinky people. There’s not much water and not much food and you can’t flush the toilets. Besides eating, the biggest challenge most days involves avoiding contact with raw sewage.

Good times. It does sound like a “Cruise From Hell,” doesn’t it? It also sounds a lot like how a majority of humanity lives day-to-day. Unlike the disgruntled Carnival Cruise customers, folks in rural Congo don’t get the luxury of being eventually towed back to port. A cruise gone bad is definitely a First-World problem.

Not that I don’t sympathize with the passengers, of course. You spend a lot of money on a vacation, you shouldn’t have to spend too much of it stepping around other people’s excrement. But I also find it perversely amusing in some way. I keep thinking of The Love Boat, where none of the episodes involved passengers pooping in plastic bags.

I’ve always been struck by the absurdity of the modern cruise: Cram as many people as possible onto a big boat, and then sail around aimlessly while they gorge and gamble. Once in awhile herd them through a few souvenir markets. And then head back for another load. For passengers, I guess, it’s like going to a Vegas casino, with the stipulation that you can never leave.

I’ve never understood the allure. After this latest debacle, I guess I never will.

*About the title: it’s part of the first verse of The Love Boat theme. Now it has such special resonance…