"... and Cozumel took him" pt 2 - aka Friday

There's only one proper way to follow a late night of drunken debauchery on a cruise ship, and that's waking up at 8am in your boxers, on top of your bed covers staring at your friend in the hallway who asks, "did you leave your door open all night?". In that respect, I followed standard procedure to a T. When I went to bed, I was almost certain I had closed the door, but obviously that was not the case. Kevin, who had been up since 6am and also sober the night before, was the one lucky (or unlucky) enough to witness the site and had decided that my subconscious had willed the door stay open in the hopes that random ladies would take advantage of my roommate and I in the night. My subconscious is a filthy place... so I didn't make any arguments.
Whether I liked it or not, I was wide awake at this point (as was Chandler) and we decided to head to the pool while Kevin ran off to check something out (what, I don't recall). I'll say that despite the lack of judging eyes up and about at the time, I felt very uncomfortable at the main pool and slowly made my way to the pool on the back of the ship. My notes are a little sparse, but I think Chandler and I were the first people in the pool and hot tubs that morning. I remember that Kevin showed up at some point and it's around this time that we ran into Tiffany the teacher and Jennifer the librarian from Hartselle, AL. Tiffany was an Auburn fan by proof of ball cap, so we had no problem chatting it up with them about football. Somehow we got on the topic of Tiffany's requirements for a husband and I remember her top 3 were: Must own a truck nicer than hers, must have a job and must own a pocket knife. I think we all got a kick out of the her "high standards"; that and both of their super thick north Alabama accents. I think the rest of our party was starting to trickle in to the back pool about the time I was beginning to prune up, so I decided to go get some lunch.
This was my first experience with the buffet on the ship and I believe the cuisine was creole inspired. The line was fairly long and I was in no mood to wait so I grabbed a desert and started looking for a seat. It was during my table exploration that I discovered, and immediately fell in love with, the deli sandwich station. I put my desert on a table and promptly entered the left lane (of two) b/c it had two people working that side instead of one. I soon learned that this lane wasn't quicker b/c one of the guys working my line was a trainee. I should have known better. It was a rookie mistake. I ended up getting the chicken salad sandwich and as I sat down I immediately regretted not getting a second one. I was vastly more hungry than I initially thought so I went back for another. Fool me once, shame on you... so this time I got in the right lane behind a Nubian Queen with a rear the size of a small horse. I shouldn't have been surprised when she ordered half the menu (and then got in the salad line), but I had been too entranced by the thought of eating a delicious turkey sandwich to have solved that equation in advance. Another long wait caused me to lose my table b/c the bus boys in the buffet area are a effective genetic mix of Haru, the great white ninja, and Mr Clean (I really wanted to reference Mr. Bubble... but it didn't quite fit the story). I decided to try outside and ended up with a great view of the water churning behind the boat. I even got a glimpse of a pretty large sea turtle... turtling around.

I ate up my dope-ass chocolate chip cookie, seen above, and went back to my room. I thought a nice mid-day nap was in order but I ended up watching reruns of 'Bones' on TNT with Chandler for probably an hour or more. As it should have been, a couple of people ended up knocking on our door not long after, bitched us out for being lazy and we both made our way back out to the pool. In some ways, I wish I hadn't gone back. The beer and company were great, but through random conversation, we all discovered that some of the other passengers on the boat, and currently drinking with us in the pool, knew my wife-to-be. One had even gone to dental school with her at UAB and was her current orthodontist. "Well, this party's over..." was my initial thought, but the more drunk they became, the less I was concerned. I would say around 4pm everyone started leaving the pool area for the dinner. Early dinner folks had already run off and the majority of us went to the Serenity Deck (adults only) for 'cleaner' hot tubs. Fast forward about an hour and JD and I are in the hot tub with an older gentleman from Birmingham named Larry. He and his partner owned a large number of Subway restaurants in North Alabama and were veritable cruise addicts. I believe they said they tried to go on one every other week. The three of us talked politics, the decline of western civilization and our plans to escape the country upon economic meltdown. It was very enjoyable.
Dinner time was quickly approaching, so we ran off to change. I met up with Chandler in the room and, after getting dressed up for dinner, we went to check out the ship's 'fun store'; I must have missed the fun part. When we got to our table for dinner, Joey (I think) noted that he had started to tell someone on the staff where we were located when walking in and she responded with, "Oh, we know what table you're at". I was glad we had left such a good impression from the night before. The dinner wasn't impressive, but I realized I could order as much as I wanted, so I did... and it was definitely too much. Fat and tired, I decided to call it an early night and went to bed around 9pm. a couple minutes after I closed my door, Joey came knocking. By some miracle, telling him I was going to call it an early night worked... and he ran off to the casino. Kevin, however, was not satisfied with that idea. I was basically forced out of bed around 10pm and headed back upstairs. It turned out to be a good turn of events. We went back to the club, ran into the very drunk dental crew as well as our Kansas City friends who had somehow acquired a plastic alligator mask. A lot of drinking and dancing ensued. I think "Pez Dispenser" was discovered that night... twerkin' it on the dance floor all by herself. Tragic. We took some photos and then all went out for late night pizza again. KC Erica decided it was a good idea to eat pizza through the mouth hole of her gator mask. That was the end of the mask and our night. I think our entire crew was in bed by around 3am. This time, I made sure the door was closed.