I don't know what you do in Costaguademexarico

We're back, and we promise several posts devoted to our honeymoon aboard the Carnival Holiday, even pictures. In this late hour, I offer you the lessons learned.

#1 Nell and Corey are not what you might call participators. We don't really get down with planned social activities, at the conclusion of which a new country line dance has been added to our repertoire or we have been awarded a medal for winning the Talent Show or the Hairy Chest Contest. We prefer to observe, with crude and offensive commentary.

#2 Old people, and not people who are sensitive about whether they might be old because AARP started sending them stuff, but Really Old People LOVE cruising. Toothless, hairless, armless, legless, deaf, blind, skin that looks like 600-thread-count sheets left in the dryer for four days, oxygen tank in their purse-having individuals who are just too damn old to WALK will still shuffle on a cruise ship and don big flowered bathing suits to sit in their wheelchairs by the pool and drink fruity drinks and smoke big long cigarettes.

#3 There is no age at which plopping down at your dinner table and announcing several times to all within earshot that you are, in fact, knee-walking drunk is acceptable. None. Especially if your occupation as a nurse is mentioned in the same sentence.

#4 Reminders or introductions of what is and is not appropriate conversation at the dinner table should be provided before embarking. This list should include, but should not be limited to: gynecology, meat processing, psycho ex-boyfriends, fondling, one's level of intoxication and the outfits of one's table mates.

#5 No matter how bad you may think you look in your pool outfit, a quick survey will identify 10 people who look worse than you do. A photo-essay devoted to this topic will follow.

#6 Gourmet can be very broadly defined.

#7 When your friends tell you it's The World's Best Idea for you to take the stage and do Patsy Cline proud karaoke-style, it's probably bullshit, and more for their amusement than your talent.

#8 Stormy seas will fuck up your roulette game.

#9 You can totally tell how long someone's been a smoker by counting the vertical lines around their lips. You can also tell what brand someone smokes by the hue of the stain in their mustache.

#10 Mexico sucks. And the diamonds aren't priced as great as they would let you believe.

#11 Having a husband is damn divine when the need arises to tell salespeople/waitstaff/photographers to step the fuck back, Bob Jr.

#12 Ten dollars here and ten dollars there and pretty soon we're talking about serious money.

In spite of, or truthfully thanks to, this list of painful lessons we learned, we had a total blast. Our schedule for five days went something like this: sleep until the steward brings the tray of continental breakfast, eat all of it, get dressed for the pool, schlep to the pool and sit in the sun under the guard of SPF 15, endure the lunch buffet, go back in the sun (Corey only made it through this part with three fruity beverages a day), return to the cabin no later than 3 PM for some napping, wake up at get ready for dinner, wander around the main decks spending frivolously and laughing at people, eat glorified airplane food at the 8:15 dinner seating in the main dining room, wander through the karaoke bar and the lounge where the show is, retire to the cabin for 10 hours of The World's Best Sleep in a dark, rocking cave. Wake up. Repeat. Except for the one day we shopped and ate in Cozumel in lieu of pool-sitting.

We are so lucky that we have found in each other someone to spend the rest of our lives laughing at other people with. We'll make fun of you for damn near anything, unless you are Glenn Davis. (If you are Glenn Davis and you communicate with pointing, signing, acting it out, using the sentences you carry around in your wallet with you so that we know your name and dancing with wild abandon during painful karaoke perfomances, we will make sure your cup is full of Coke and we will take pictures of you hugging and dancing with all the pretty ladies so you can remember your fourth cruise.)

So yeah, we weren't impressed with cruising, but we are fully aware and appreciative of how much fun we have with each other, and how endlessly we can be amused by absolutely nothing. And, blah, blah, we know we're going to hell for making fun of drunks, smokers, the morbidly obese and the near-dead, but that's okay, because we know most of you are going to keep us company down there.