On the good ship lollyvodkacran

On Saturday we did something very different. We went on a Goodtime III cruise. The Goodtime III is "Cleveland's largest excursion ship" which basically takes you down through the Flats on the Cuyahoga River and then out on the lake. We first came up with the idea at the wine festival last week when we were wasted and saw a boat full of people cruise by, and we all screamed, "Let's go on the boat!" When we sobered up, Steph told us that she had been on it, and it was a total blast full of young people all getting drunk and dancing. Obviously we were in.

The closer it got to Saturday night, the more Diane and I started worrying about the crowd we would encounter. There's no way tons of young people are on a dance cruise on a Saturday night, right? Drew said, "It'll probably be a lot of older women like 30 and up." Um...WTF, Drew?!? He quickly corrected himself. "I mean 40 and up," he said. Whatever. So we got down there to buy our tickets before the cruise, and we voiced our concerns to Steph who said, "No I've been on this. There were a lot of college kids and stuff." Hey-I will totally make out with a college kid so that's fine.

We walked up to the ticket window and saw the sign for the tour. It said, "Romantic Dance Cruise". Um...I'm sorry Romantic Who-y What-y? We all looked at Steph who looked confused. We started reading the other signs. There are several different kinds of public cruises you can go on. As Steph was reading the sign, a look came over her face. "Oooooh-you know what? I'm pretty sure the one I went on was the Happy Hour Cruise." The Happy Hour cruise. That goes out at 6pm. On Fridays. We were all like, "Oh okay so the one we missed because it's now Saturday? Great."

We continued staring at the signs, and the ticket lady started kind of giving us the look like 'are you going to buy tickets or what?'. So Steph went up to the window and said, "So...the romantic dance cruise. Exactly how romantic is the romantic dance cruise?" The ticket lady waved her hand dismissively and said, "Oh no no no-it's not like that at all. It's a lot of fun, and lots of groups of girls do this all the time." Yeah I'm sure groups of girls do it, lady. But I'm thinking the chances of groups of guys deciding to go on a romantic dance cruise on a Saturday night is slim to nil.

We remained unconvinced and looked around at each other completely unsure how to proceed when Steph goes, "Is there a bar?" Ticket lady goes, "Yes there is." That's pretty much all we needed so we decided to go. As we were walking over to wait by the dock Steph goes, "Yeah I'm 100% sure I went on the Happy Hour cruise." It was hard to be mad, though, because she was laughing so hard that she wasn't making any noise. It was awesome.

Waiting for the boat gave us a better look at who we would be traveling with for the next two hours. There were a lot of young people. And by a lot I mean the 7 of us girls. Ticket lady proved a little untrustworthy as pretty much everyone was part of a couple. Also remember my guardian pimp angel? I'm pretty sure he was there and wearing the same outfit as before.

As we boarded the boat, we got a good look at the "band". It was two old guys-one playing drums and one playing keyboard. They had to be in their 70's at least. We walked on the boat, and they turned at look at us, and in the best, friendliest old man voice the keyboardist said, "Hi girls!" And Steph was like, "Look the band likes us!" And I was like, "Yeah that's because we remind them of their grandchildren."

We went up to the second level, went immediately to the bar and found a great table on the front of the boat in the open air. After having two drinks before we even left the dock, we decided it was going to be an awesome cruise no matter what. On our level of the boat they played some pretty sweet Teddy Pendergrass/soul-type stuff, and I didn't know any of it. But it was fine because at one point they played The Atomic Dog, and I tried to get Steph to get on all fours so I could pretend I was walking her with a leash.

It was also around this time that I met my boyfriend who was the cop on board the boat. He and his buddy work that cruise every Saturday. He has a mustache. He asked me if I was going to come out and dance later. We were on the path to true love until Steph came up and stole him with all her 'oh I'm a laywer let's talk about criminal law' bullcrap. Whatever, Steph! He wanted to see me dance!

The drinks were incredibly strong, the weather was perfect and the crowd ended up being totally hilarious. We had an absolute blast. I'm so glad we went. After that we went downtown to the year 2000. Oh I mean the rooftop of the Velvet Dog. Even though I had a freaking great time, I'm too old for that place as evidenced by the fact that we made friends with a girl, and she asked me where I lived, and I said, "Oh I'm boring-I live in the suburbs." And she said, "No that is awesome! I'm, like, totally impressed when I hear someone lives in the suburbs." That kind of gave it away that she might be a little young. Who is impressed by people living in the suburbs except those who picture it as a place far off in their future-a place that is like "the end game" and means you are settling down?

Shortly after that she told us she's still in college. So we threw her off the roof.