I have always wanted to go on a cruise. Not that I am a sea-faring kind of person; nope, no sailing the seven seas for me. A few days and nights on the Caribbean Sea would be more than enough to sate my curiosity.

I guess my desire to take a cruise had a lot to do with my infatuation with the Love Boat when I was a child. It was one of the better shows back then, and even if it wasn't, it's not like I had much option then. It was either watch JBC or die of boredom. However, now that we have cable television, satellite television and the Internet, that desire to go on a cruise falls into the same category as my desire to contract HIV.

After watching movies like Poseidon, reading about outbreaks of Norovirus on cruise liners, tsunamis, and sinking cruise ships, let's just say the time has come for me to focus on other interests.

It's not like I can't swim but cruise ships don't go about their business near the shore lines where you might have a chance if anything happens. They go way out there where all you can see is water, no land, no trees, nothing but the blue of the ocean, a blue that turns to deep black at night and can I tell you, if anything happens and that ship sinks I can promise you I am not playing Leonardo Di Caprio and holding on to any floating debris. I am sinking from jump. For me that's better than holding on and worrying about what lurks beneath.

I remember watching the most recent incarnation of the movie Poseidon and the feeling that came over me as that monster wave closed in on the unsuspecting cruise ship and its passengers. Right there in that moment I asked myself how I would have reacted had I been in the place of Richard Dreyfuss' character. The feeling of hopelessness that befell me then is something I never want to experience ever again.

If I was living my life as a cartoon I would have raced across the surface of the ocean like Sonic, but the last time I checked I was 200 plus pounds of flesh and blood and a whole lot of adrenaline, but all that adrenaline would not be able to juice me up to run that fast in real life.

Heart attack

The way I figured it, I would have died from a heart attack the second I saw the wave.

People who I have shared my concerns with tell me that nothing ever happens on a cruise, and those incidents that do occur are isolated, but that has nothing to do with me and my luck.

This is my luck. I will walk into a store to buy, say, a cellphone. If they happen to have one that I like, the one I choose from all the others, will start powering down the first time I try to use it or it just won't turn on.

I remember once I bought a portable CD player from a Target store in New York. It was sweet. It even came with an adapter for my car and nice carrying pouch and CD case. I couldn't wait to get home and cut open the hard plastic protecting it, but as fate would have it, of the dozens of players on display, I chose the one that would not play.

So you see if I choose to go on a cruise, the ship that I am on will be doomed. The minute I step onboard, the planet will start working on a monster undersea quake that is going to generate the mother of all tsunamis and that would be it for me.

And knowing my luck, I would get the Norovirus, and as I start experiencing the vomiting and the runs, the ship would develop a major leak and start to sink, but just slow enough for the oncoming tsunami to come put me out of my misery.

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