{"id":657,"date":"2011-12-04T16:49:56","date_gmt":"2011-12-04T07:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=657"},"modified":"2013-06-17T18:12:50","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T18:12:50","slug":"return-to-king-neptunes-court-at-sea-11262011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=657","title":{"rendered":"Return to King Neptune\u2019s Court \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [11\/26\/2011]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So it is that the time comes once again to pay service to King Neptune.<\/p>\n

Those of us who have served time in Neptune\u2019s court before, who have been resurrected from sacrifice and pressed into service as medics and pirates, knew what was coming. We slunk off duty early, to change into disposable costumes (the smart ones remembering to wear swimsuits underneath, because like it or not everyone is going to end up in the drink), removing jewelry and pinning back hair.<\/p>\n

Most of the pollywogs though, were hapless, helpless, and trembling (most times with laughter), as we bound them to the over-long rope (serious rope actually, as thick around as your wrist), and hauled them onto the deck for judgment.<\/p>\n

Last time I was a pirate. This time, I moved up the ranks, and became a medic.<\/p>\n

Revenge is sweet.<\/p>\n

Because it really is all about revenge, the people who slimed you are long gone of course, moved to a different ship, and besides, you can\u2019t slime someone who\u2019s already a shellback. Doesn\u2019t matter, you show no mercy to pollywogs because none was shown to you, and none was shown to those who came before you.<\/p>\n

Standing there, in the sun, watching the pirates harass their prisoners (and I do mean harass, this time we gave them buckets of ice water to throw over the cage!), the first thing you do is crack open the barrel of slime, delve your hands in (that\u2019s why you wear no jewelry) and slop it over the surface of the table. So no matter which way the person that gets stuck with you lies down\u2026<\/p>\n

Of course, the slime gets all over you as well as your \u2018victims\u2019. That\u2019s why the costumes are disposable, even after you get thrown in the pool at the end of the ceremony that smell is never coming out.<\/p>\n

Three people in we were blue\/green\/pink\/yellow AND STICKY up to our elbows\u2026the costumes we were wearing were plastered to our skin with pool water (the tables are set up in the pool, so you actually are standing up to your ankles in water), and meringue, and I personally, was very glad I\u2019d had enough sense to pin my hair into a bun before I started.<\/p>\n

Some vile pollywogs fight you see , and the first thing they aim for when they\u2019re trying to throw the stuff back at you is your hair and your face. That\u2019s why we were all wearing sunglasses to (well one of the reasons)<\/p>\n

Enough! It is for the ship\u2019s staff to decide. Shall they be dunked? Or shall they survive?!<\/p>\n

HIT THE DRINK!!!<\/strong><\/p>\n

No! LET \u2018EM BAKE!!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ship\u2019s staff was cruel today, with three quarters of the pollywogs being forced to sit on the edge of the pool, coated in sticky, multicolored goop, forbidden even the dubious relief of jumping in the water (which turns a suspicious shade of grey early on in the ceremony)\u2026<\/p>\n

That said, pollywogs on this ship had it easy. When I went through the ceremony on the way to Brazil a year or so back, they used real kitchen slops: mashed potatoes, salad, chocolate sauce, spaghetti and then they floured you\u2026blaaaaaah!<\/p>\n

And then there was the fact that our Cruise Director was a pollywog.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not very often you get to pull all this on your boss. Everyone else just got meringued (apparently it tasted like strawberries), but the CD\u2026there were two barrels set aside for him that were a mixture of (I think) meringue, peanut butter and fish\u2026in fact, there was a fish in one of those barrels.\u00a0 So he got those, plus the dregs of everything else. The downside of the multi-pronged attack (the entire team of medics ganged up on him), was that the slime for him was very liquidy, which meant it hit him and then splashed up on us\u2026blech\u2026<\/p>\n

And as we stood there on the edge of the pool, counting off to three so that we could all hit the water at the same time, someone (and I have my suspicions as to who it was), came along behind us and pushed us all one after the other. Spluttering and soaking \u2013 but at least mostly free of rainbow coloured coating, we hauled ourselves out to the edges of the pool and watched the others dive in, the splash fights emerge, the pirates themselves being hurled headlong (wigs and all) in after us..<\/p>\n

And yes\u2026I do get paid to do this\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So it is that the time comes once again to pay service to King Neptune. Those of us who have served time in Neptune\u2019s court before, who have been resurrected from sacrifice and pressed into service as medics and pirates, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-asiaaustralia-2011","category-theme-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-aB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2149,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/2149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}