WOODY'S ROUND UP

I like to be in control of my own destiny. I’ll self-regulate a situation right into the ground more times than a kamikaze pilot during World War II. Okay—bad analogy—that’s a one shot deal. My take-offs and landings (yeah plural … as in repetitive) have never resulted in a crash and burn scenario (yeah singular … and fatal). Besides, let’s not talk about planes or the air; Let’s talk about boats and the water ... and freebies … and healthy lifestyles … and authority figures … and freedom.

More than a year ago my mother-in-law took us on our very first cruise. She’d been on plenty of cruise ships, and at her suggestion, said we’d enjoy a little R & R. Let’s be honest: the only boat I enjoy being on is my dad’s fishing boat where I don’t have to jockey for position in a buffet line with a bunch of seriously overweight young couples. Not good. No, I’d rather pull on a seaweed-entangled anchor over and over again, knowing that the next fishing spot would be just as bad. Well, maybe that’s taking it a bit too far. But cruise ships are not for me, unless you consider how I discovered that my key card was under my mother-in-law’s name and could be used, not only to enter my prison cell of a room, but also to purchase whatever I wanted. So I snuck off to the Cadillac Lounge every chance I could get and drank expensive Berritini’s served by a young Pakistani. The pianist wasn’t too bad either, considering it was her first cruise gig and she put up with my requests for anything by Norah Jones. Also, she wasn’t overweight and aggressive like the passengers, and the lounge lacked patrons. I kind of wished I’d’ve bought her CD. It wouldn’t have cost me anything; it wasn’t until the next night that my mother-in-law found me sipping on a chilled Berritini that she said, "I hope I’m not paying for that." She already knew the answer. We weren’t allowed to use cash. Against the rules.

My R & R came from that dark cavern of a lounge where I vowed to get back in shape and shed a few pounds once we returned home. (Remember: I like to be in control of my own destiny.) So I went back to work, pressed the inmates to study study study, and exercised my ass off on a regular basis. I even told one young lazy convict that I’d drop thirty pounds before he got his GED. He didn’t take me serious. A year has passed since then and the young man transferred to another prison still GEDless while I, on the other hand, became known as "a buck forty-two soaking wet" instead of "a buck seventy-five."

Just as engineers solve old problems and in the process create new ones, I became healthier and gained several personal trainers from the prison yard weight pit. This also meant challenging my authority daily—a regular damned Woody’s Round Up of characters. Too much testosterone in one place. See where I’m going with this? Neither do I. But I’ll keep it clean. Something to do with it being a Disney cruise--SERIOUSLY. Not as many kids as you would think either; although I’m sure a few were conceived on that trip.

Moral to my ramblings: When a little boy trapped in a man’s body doesn’t get his way I’ll say, "Look, this may be Disneyland but you don’t get to pick and choose your rides. You say bumper cars and I say ferris wheel. Deal with it! We all got to answer to someone."