Causing confusion on the way to the Seventh Continent

I’m no cheater. I play fair, even in silly marshmallow games.

By Day Five of my cruise, the natives were restless and, had we been any ordinary sea folk, probably would have mutinied. But bad weather is bad weather and, recognizing we couldn’t do squat to fix it, we went along with anything the crew offered, which included elementary school-type competitions.

I’m happy to report that my team won the paper airplane competition and tied for first in the overall competition. And that I am not a cheater – and there’s video to prove it.

My second polar circle crossing.

Yes, we had a competition involving marshmallows. This is when you take a miniature spoon and, relay style, dip into a cup of mini-marshmallows, put as many as you can on the little spoon and run down the lounge area of a boat that’s tossing and turning (I mean, we were doing this because the weather was too bad to get off the boat, after all) and dump it into your designated cup before passing the tiny spoon off to the next person on your team to lather, rinse and repeat.

Our team did crappy, in part because our first player dumped his in the wrong cup. Probably, had we cheated, we would have fared better. But we didn’t. I learned there was proof of this the evening after the games, just before the nightly wrap-up presentation.

 As people file into the little auditorium, the expedition team plays a short video file – maybe a minute. As I sat down, I realized it was the start of the silly marshmallow game. Mortified, I saw myself on the screen, hair braided and wearing an Iraq sweatshirt, in a progression that includes me:

• Running across the table with the cups, because I realized I needed to be in place to grab the spoon from the first guy and our cup was on the opposite end of the room.
• Frantically waving at the first guy to signal him to the right cup, which he didn’t notice. (It was loud; he was concentrating. Fortunately there was no sound on the video. I was yelling and waving all around.)
• Disappearing offscreen as I ran down a different aisle the bar to grab the marshmallows. I managed four.
• Running up to the cup as I hold a spoon containing a single marshmallow. You can also see three marshmallows in my hand; they’d jumped ship as I maneuvered people and a rocking ship.

Protocol dictates kissing a fish following a 
successful circle crossing. I don't know why.

Mortified, I saw this over and over because the video was on a loop. People were laughing at it because the whole thing was ridiculous; we had maybe five teams and everyone was an adult, so we looked pretty silly. (Being at sea for five days does this to you.) Gradually, though, I realized that most people’s laughter was directed to a different person on the video, my roommate.

Roommate was a fun one and we got along great, but boy, she cheated! While my on-screen likeness shows me taking great pains not to cheat, hers – over and over – displayed her also holding fallen baby marshmallows in her hand, and as soon as she arrived at the table, she dumped them in her cup. Because of the camera angle, you can’t see who pointed out that wasn’t allowed, but you seen her arguing and pleading her case – over and over. It was kind of an interesting character study.

We had a lot of characters on the cruise. There were about 120 guests and 80 or so crew. So far as I could tell, everyone got along. We had a decent amount of backpackers who had booked the trip late and just as many who had been waiting for 2-3 years to take the cruise. It was fun getting to chat with them.

Kurdagonia, not Patagonia
at the LeMaire Crossing

On of my unintended icebreakers was my Iraqi sweatshirt. It’s a pun on the brand Patagonia, but I didn’t bring it because I left from Patagonia; I brought it because I only have three sweatshirts with me now. But since we were so close to Patagonia, I had so many people ask what it meant. It says “Kurdagonia” and came from Erbil. I probably explained it to 10 people during the course of the cruise. One person even pretty much figured it out, saying he’d heard of both Kurdistan and Patagonia, but not Kurdagonia. I was like, yes, that’s it.

Now I am re-acclimating to Iraq; different desert in a different part of the world. Travel back was shorter but just as exhausting as it was on the way there. I left for the airport at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night and crawled into my apartment at 2 p.m. on Thursday. I can’t prove Wednesday existed.

But it’s back to reality now and things are looking up. Based on my email, it sounds like I’m in for a windfall. Discovered in my inbox, an unfortunate soul in Ukraine died, leaving $58m big ones.

“He had no next of kin based on the fact that his nominated was also killed during the Russian air strike but he has the same First name with you hence  I am contacting you today because you can inherit this fortune through some legal  means that I will advise because you share the same last name and with the help of the deceased personal lawyer he will prepare all necessary legal binding documents that will enable this finance firm release the mentioned amount to you if you accept this offer.”

Honestly, it is unbelievable that someone would buy that. Seriously? I share the same first name, so somehow I’m an heir? Bizarre.