The Quest

Last night was an interactive game show on the ship called The Quest. A terrific warm-up to the game involves doing the wave through the Ice Skating Studio in which the event is held. There are about four tries to get the wave going – warming people up to the idea that they are all going to have to stand up at some point. Then the wave is done in slow motion – so another set of resistance muscles comes into play. And then we did the wave in really slow motion after which there was a contest, one side against the other, as to who could sing “Who Let the Dogs Out” with the greatest volume. This is a song I have only heard at this game show, but everyone else in the audience seems to know it. Am I listening to the wrong radio station? What is important to know is that behind us was sitting Mr. Iowa (the man who couldn’t do the tongue-twister, Smart Fellow). Rebecca and I chatted with that couple for a while, and then noticed that he was the first up to be one of the team captains. No woman came forward, so after a long search through the audience, Rebecca put herself down at the front of our stands as his co-captain. The moderator is looking for things that are in the audience. The questions are simple and always begin with “Be the first team to bring down a ....”. The questions begin easily ... a sea pass card, a Cruise Compass, 4 men’s belts linked together. When the contest got a little harder ... our team became even more reticent to want to be “first”. For example, Be the first to bring down a men’s shirt” was a complete bust for us. You can imagine how much people have been eating on the cruise if not one man was willing to take his shirt off, even with Rebecca running up and down the studio stairs, begging men everywhere for their cooperation.

The final joy of the evening was to take one man from the team, dress him as a woman, and bring him to the front to be judged, in 1 ½ minutes. He had to be wearing a bra. If the men on our side wouldn’t take off their shirts, you can imagine how anxious the women were to get their bras off. Then, before 800 people, Rebecca whipped her hands under her shirt and got hers off to use, without an inch of skin ever showing. By that time I had added two scarves, and a glittering black evening bag, while another woman offered her lipstick to brighten the colour on his face, our team was ready.

We did laugh a lot that evening.

Arta