Nip/Tuck

Note: This is an od post I meant to put up about two weeks ago. Sorry...

We were in Miami on our day off last week, so we decided to make the best of it and explore the city since we are usually in Miami on our show day. The rest of the group had to venture off to Circuit City to have computer problems attended to, so Beth and I were on our own. We started our day at the Internet Center where we can check our email for much cheaper than on the ship. This place also doubles as a mail center, so I shipped off my niece’s birthday present, which was a t-shirt that changes colors in the sun, in case you were interested. In my rush to get the package off, I was hasty in selecting my card, which I thought was a charming picture of a pig wearing sunglasses. I later found out, after my sister had pointed it out to me, that the pig was also smoking a cigarette. This image sparked a virulent anti-smoking tirade from my four year old niece, who wanted to call me up immediately to tell me that smoking was bad, how she was never going to smoke when she was a teenager, and how the pig was like our uncle who she had caught smoking at a Labor Day party.

From there we went to News Café, which is where we like to treat ourselves to meals when in South Beach. But this was merely a prelude to our final destination, Wet Willie’s, a popular chain bar that specializes in frozen drinks. I was soon sipping a Call a Cab, which had a too similar taste to cherry cough syrup for my liking, and talking to my roommate Greg about my newfound appreciation for Gordon Lightfoot. “If You Could Read My Mind,” a song I had never heard before getting on the ship, is in heavy rotation on the ship’s Muzak system. One of the hostesses also sings it during the Crew Talent Show. Hearing it so frequently made me want to download it on my iTunes, but when we searched for it we were shocked to find how many versions existed. There are country, jazz, folk, instrumental, and classic rock covers available – and while I was tempted to download one of the newer options, I ultimately settled on the original. I sensed that Greg doubted my new Lightfoot Loyalty, so I started singing the song to him over the phone. Beth joined me on the chorus to provide high harmony, and we soon heard a third voice joining in. I’m not one to censure anyone’s song, so I held up the phone to our new friend and allowed him to finish the song.

Our new friend turned out to be a recently laid off flight attendant who was visiting his friend, an older Puerto Rican gentleman who was sitting with him as well. We started chatting about how great the song was, and the Flight Attendant told us how the club version (not available on iTunes) had helped him get over a bad breakup the year before. We had soon enveloped the pleasant looking 55 year old woman sitting on a nearby bar stool into the conversation. She turned out to be the president of a college on an Indian Reservation in Wisconsin who was in town visiting her son to celebrate her birthday. The Flight Attendant’s friend excused himself to take a phone call, and when he came back he was very apologetic for leaving. He explained how a friend of his was having his face lift scars corrected, and so he had to talk to him about how it had gone. He revealed he was a plastic surgeon, a revelation that made me understand the thrill of discovery 1981 movie audiences must have felt when Darth Vader announced he was Luke’s father. We started bombarding him with questions, and while he was initially reluctant to say too much for fear of jeopardizing doctor-patient confidentiality, he eventually opened up after we assured him we didn’t need names (although those would have been nice). He had recently sold his practice and said he had refused to do breast enlargements and Botox, but we never really got the reasons behind those objections. He also divulged that the strangest operation he had ever performed was a penis enlargement. We asked him how that was done, at which point he turned to me and told me to pull down my pants. I did what I always do when I get embarrassed, which is to laugh and turn red, and he continued to demand that I pull down my pants while I grew redder and laughed louder. At one point I think a chant of “Pull down your pants” went around the table. Common sense prevailed and my belt stayed fastened, and the Doctor pulled his own shorts down a few inches to show us where the incision was made (about four inches below the belly button. Apparently there’s some loop of vessels or something that you unsnip to give the patient up to an extra inch in length).

The frozen drinks were really flowing at this point. The College President said she would have the area under her chin liposucked if she was to have any surgery done, and the Surgeon admitted that he was getting that done in October. This admission made me start self-consciously touching the skin underneath my own jaw, and when the Surgeon saw me doing this he said, “You would be a good candidate, but you’re too young.” We left soon after, the group calling Beth “beautiful” and me “a sweetheart” when we had left to use the bathrooms, and I’m pretty sure if I had stayed the night would have ended with me getting a new nose.

We went to the steakhouse for dinner that night, and the combination of rare filet mignon, sugary frozen drinks, and my mild cold made me violently ill the entire night. I’ll spare you the details, but I woke up completely dehydrated and nervous about how I was going to handle Disney World the next morning.