Imperial Death Ship: The Queen Mary 2

I Trusted the Force, and Now My Girlfriend Is My Sister? Yuck!

Published on June 9, 2004 By blogic In Humor

Anyway, as I was saying, my wife Jennifer, her friend Jeff, and I were zipping across Manhattan to get to the Westside. Our taxi driver was zipping with us, naturally.

The start of the ride was a little difficult. With three backseat drivers (well, I was actually in the passenger seat), Cabbie was getting a little frustrated with our contradictory instructions. Cabbie, being a cabbie, thought he knew the best way to cross the city. We all helpfully suggested three other ways of crossing, each trying to drown out the others' suggestions.

Finally, we settled on crossing via 14th St. Cabbie asked where we were going, and our answer wasn't even a stationary location. We were off to see the mother of all ocean liners: The Queen Mary 2, jewel of the Cunard Line. Cabbie wasn't thrilled about this answer. For one thing, he appeared to be the only person in New York who hadn't heard about the ship. For the week before, all my lawyer friends had been able to talk about was the view of the ship floating around randomly on the Hudson River.

There may have been a language barrier. English wasn't Cabbie's first language, and it's not exactly like we were being clear, three voices at once, something like the Mongolian throat singers.

Since I was in front, I kept wildly gesturing ahead of us, to the West and the Hudson. Cabbie was snapping his head back and forth, trying to listen to us and watch crazy New York traffic. Meanwhile, Jennifer and Jeff were arguing about where we should stop on the Westside, to watch the ship float by. In the middle of all this, layers of lights started to move across the gap between the building along 14th St, slowly blocking out the view of New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson.

I started yelling for everyone to look at the ship, and the Cabbie kept insisting that it was a building. ["That's no moon, that's a battlestation"]. Finally, he paused, and exclaimed, "That's a ship!"

So we tore across Manhattan, chasing our ship, which was lit up like a cheap Vegas casino, and towered over the the low docks of the river.

We drove past 4th Avenue, with it's Nazi cats, past 5th Avenue with the ever watching Eye of the Empire State Building.

On 6th Avenue is the newly opened Container Store. People in Manhattan are creaming their jeans over finally having a Container Store. In NYC, organizing small spaces is everything. Our kitchen is so small, it also serves as our foyer and our cutting board is a separate piece of furniture, on wheels. There are lines around the block to get into the Container Store. Man, I'd be much happier if I could just buy It's Its in New York (they've been a San Francisco tradition since 1918). Man, if I'm low on space, a heap will always do. Of course, the wife doesn't always like that.

Finally, we turned South on the Westside Highway, chasing the QM2, the sun setting across the river, still arguing about where to stop. By now, Cabbie was enjoying it all, our whale was close.

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