Playing hookey

Right now I am not attending a cocktail party with the Captain, Jonathan Mercer. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Captain Mercer, who, in addition to being tall, handsome, and endowed with a confidence-inspiring British accent, seems to be a highly competent officer and a prince among men. I particularly appreciate his willingness to explain things to us, like the time we suddenly veered off course so dramatically that it woke everyone at 4 am (it was a malfunction of the steering machinery, which the crew handled without further mishap,and which Captain Mercer explained without resorting to "There, there, don't worry your pretty little heads about it" dismissiveness). I even like his wife, whose charm is surpassed only by her lively intelligence.

No, my decision to stay in my cabin and play mindless computer games has to do with my inability to understand why anyone goes to cocktail parties and my growing realization that I Have A Choice.

In the first place, the Captain will not miss me. Half the people on board have been invited, and I am just sparing him the necessity of smiling warmly at one more anonymous face and making meaningless social noises for 20 seconds before turning to the next passenger.

In the second place, half the people on board have been invited -- the other half will attend a later session for people who eat at the late sitting. Several hundred people in one place make a lot of noise, virtually guaranteeing that conversation will be impossible, even should it be possible to find someone with whom to converse, which, in a crowd of several hundred, is, paradoxically, far from easy.

In the third place, although I indulged myself at the Murder Mystery dinner, drinking alcoholic beverages is not my idea of a good time. I imply no judgment, it's personal taste, I'd just rather have a ginger ale than a martini.

But most important is my realization that I don't have to go everywhere I am invited. It's marvelously liberating.

And at that point in the composition of this blog entry, I went to dinner. All the other people at the table had gone to the party, had drunk several glasses of champagne and eaten what were universally acclaimed as excellent hors d'oeuvres, and were feeling very little pain, thank you very much. Maybe I should try not being such a snip. There's a clear difference between a theoretical cocktail party, to which all my objections still stand, and an actual cocktail party, which may have many unanticipated redeeming features, though if I had attended, as they did, and imbibed, as they did, I am not sure I could have found my way unassisted through words like "unanticipated".