Our next day off was pending and the need for a new
deckhand to take the watch whilst we went out and got pissed became dire.
Moreover, one stupid and greedy enough to slog through the intensity of life on
The Good Ship. Cue Sam.
Sam arrived at the boat shortly after we pulled into
port in the South of France, bright eyed and bushy tailed. And ginger.
‘Do you smell fox’s wee?’ I whispered to Kay, and we
snickered unfairly as we left the boat. For the first time ever, the crew went
their separate ways for their day and a half off. Kay and a friend dropped me
off at my hotel and continued up into the mountains. Mario took up a suite in
the Marriot for the night, the Leader went home to his swank apartment where
his parents were visiting from the North Pole, and Mini Me got drunk and
retired early. And who cares about Gale.
Two days later we reconvened on the boat for a normal
pre-charter work day. Now whilst we’re accustomed to the outlandish crew
behaviour which transpires when we’re let off the leash, the following story
tops that of Mario parking his car in the middle of the street and stealing
someone’s wheelchair. Feeling a bit of separation anxiety (Stockholm Syndrome),
Mini Me and Mario decided to join the Leader and his crumblies for several
hundred bottles of rosé on his terrace, followed by a night on the town. By the
time they left the apartment, Mini was so wankered that she had to be carried
most of the way by the Leader’s mum, who was only slightly less inebriated than
her. She proceeded to drop her purse every hundred metres, spilling it’s
contents over the pavement, which then had to then be picked up by Mario, who
was so drunk it was like watching a bull pick up pennies. She was promptly put
in a taxi upon arrival. Mario was the next to go and he departed on foot,
although he found himself unable to locate his hotel and vexed with some
irritable bowels. Left with no other option than to relieve himself in a
parking lot, he found a seemingly suitable spot between two cars and dropped
his drawers. In the very most crucial moment of his unpleasant poop, he was
suddenly caught in the headlights of the gendarmerie, which was followed by the
deafening blast of the police siren. This gave him enough of a fright in his
compromised state that he would’ve shit himself were he not already in the act
of doing so. Eager to avoid any run-ins with the law, Mario promptly fled the
scene clutching the front of his jeans to keep them up and the rear to avoid them
making contact with his bum, and the po-po in hot pursuit. As the story goes, a
chase ensued that involved scaling fences and hiding behind corners, and what
he described as one particularly dramatic dive through some bushes, which
landed him quite accidentally in front of the steps to his hotel. He got up,
dusted himself off, picked the wedgie from his butt cheeks, and strolled into
the Marriott.
We all stared at him in horror.
‘Don’t worry’, he added proudly ‘I threw away my pants’.