Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...

...a tale of a fateful trip.  That started from this tropic port with 400 nerds on a ship.

Not going on this cruise was never a discussion for Nick and I.  It was sort of hideous timing from a financial, scheduling, and work perspective, but even if we had to sleep in bunk beds and help row the boat, we were going to be there.  Which is not to say that it was an anxiety-free decision -- what if we all just sat around and stared at each other for a week?   What if we were actually too nerdly for other nerds to get along with?    What if we actually overestimated our nerdliness and we weren't nerdly enough?  What if the performers we've long appreciated and admired turned out to be raving douche bags?   What if the boat was full of screaming, flailing  younglings?   Add to that both of our near-crippling social anxiety (social anxiety among nerds...crazy, right?) and we were both terrified and excited at the same time about this trip. 

Skip to Sunday evening -- we wandered into the Crow's Nest for the first night party, which is half full of people who have already made friends.  We stood in the entryway, intimidated and stunned by the number of people all engaged in easy conversation.  To anyone who suffers social anxiety, you're probably familiar with that moment where you decide to either run away and hide or lurch forward and hope for the best.  We lurched.

Half an hour later we'd found our first new friends -- a whole family of them.  (Too nerdy to be around other people?   Hrmm...these folks seems pretty damn normal and aren't scared of us.  Rambunctious younglings?  More like coolest kids afloat.  Maybe this whole socializing with strangers thing won't be such a big deal after all.)

After a relatively uneventful yet uninspired dinner, we meandered to the game room, to be greeted by a cheery "HELLO NERDS!" from Paulofpaulandstorm, who was merrily directing game traffic, thereby precluding the 'awkward roomful of people staring at each other' portion of the evening. After a few lovely rounds of Munchkin with some hysterical and patient folk we were headed back to our bunk-bedded shoebox to get some sleep in anticipation of our early morning rowing shift.