Performing on a ship I have passenger status. I'm in a passenger cabin not crew accommodations and I can do any activity the passengers can. It also means I have to participate in the life boat drill, even though I have done it hundreds of times before. I hate it. It is hot and boring. Old ladies think it is sad for a person to be traveling alone and invite me to have dinner at their "red hat" table.

On one trip I decide not to go to the boat drill. They announce "security will check every room to make sure everyone complies". I do the math and figure there is no way they can check a thousand rooms in the time they have. So I hide in my cabin.

I am kicking back; the drill has begun, I figure I am safe, when I hear the door lock start to turn. Shit! - They do check every room! In a quickly ill-concieved plan I jump behind the curtains. (I think I saw this done in a Marx Brothers movie once) I figure security will open the door, see no one in the room and move on.

But that is not what happens. I hear the cabin door open, then the bathroom door open and someone walking around the room definitely not leaving quickly.

I figure it is only a matter of time before I am discovered so I poke my head through the curtains. I see it is not security but my cabin attendant Dolores.

Dolores is a portly Jamaican woman whom I have become friends with in spite of her superstitions about my career. She is very cautious of a man who works with, in her words, "graven images".

Her back is turned to me as I whisper her name. I want her to know I am there, but not call a lot of attention to my absence from the drill. She looks nervously left and right but not behind her, where the voice is actually coming from.

One more time I say in a stage whisper, "Dolores". This time she looks behind and sees... my head sticking through the curtain; to her perception it looks like a disembodied head floating above the floor calling her name!

She screams and jumps on the bed, doing an adrenaline fueled Jamaican voo doo dance. I come out from my hiding place to calm her down hoping her screamimg has not alerted security.

We will laugh about that for the rest of the trip, but the next week she transferred to work on another deck.

As you were,
Jay