Love and Marriage

It seems that every ship hosts their own version of the famous Newlywed Game.  On Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas it’s called Love and Marriage. They select three couples: one married less than a year; another married between 10 and 25 years; and for the third pair, they choose the oldest couple who are still able to climb the stairs to the stage.  Kellie wanted to play; I was not so eager. I tried to get her cruise husband to take my place, but Kellie insisted this was a job for the real husband, so I defaulted to my rote vacation response: “Whatever you desire, dear.

During the first round, the women were taken off stage while the men answered questions about their wives. The cruise director asked each man to guess his wife’s bra size and identify the type of underpants she was wearing: thong, bikini, or granny panties. I had no clue what Kellie’s bra size. The newlywed seated next to me was equally clueless about his wife and he started feeling-up the air in a failed attempt to guesstimate her cup size. My initial guess for Kellie was 36D, but the women in the audience did not agree and began shouting out their own estimates.  I succumbed to the pressure and changed my answer to 36C. The cruise director chastised me for downgrading my wife.  The female viewers were still not satisfied with my response and were me pressing for further reductions. I was the only one there, I hoped, with first hand knowledge of the situation, so I stuck with 36C – final answer.  It turns out that Kellie didn’t know her bra size either, which makes me wonder how she buys those things. Is it a trial and error process? She also guessed 36C, so we earned a point.  Later, back at our cabin, we checked a label and discovered that we both guessed correctly. The underpants part of the question was easy, but I needed another option because Kellie usually goes commando. 

In round two, the men left stage while the women tried to guess how their husbands would respond.  The cruise director asked the wives, “When you imagine your husband naked, do you see the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or Finding Nemo?” I was fairly confident that Kellie wouldn’t select either of the last two choices, but deciding between the first two options presented a slight dilemma. Just by the order in which the choices were presented, it was clear that the Eiffel Tower was intended to be the most virile option.  The Eiffel Tower, as with most things French, does not strike me as being particularly masculine, and I never envisioned it as a phallic symbol. The shape is all wrong. I don’t have many points of comparison, but I’ve never seen one that looked like an elongated pyramid. Plus, the open lattice construction makes the entire structure seem light and airy.  I don’t know of any male who would want his manhood described as light and airy. 

I had several reasons for believing that the Leaning Tower of Pisa might be a better choice. First, I’m Italian so it’s a perfect ethnic match.  Second, the proportions are much more appropriate; the ratio of that structure’s height to its girth gives it a nice hefty appearance. Third, the tower’s inclination is a nearly perfect match for the angle of the dangle. Finally, the history of the Leaning Tower Pisa almost an exact metaphor for the lifecycle of male genitalia.  When it was initially constructed, it stood proud and tall, but with passage of time, it gradually began to lose its ability to remain perfectly erect and it slowly started to lean.  Over the years, men have done everything possible to keep the edifice in place, but despite their best efforts to maintain the structure in a functional position, it continues to sag and will eventually fall to the ground rendering it completely useless.

I didn’t think that Kellie would give the question even a fraction of the mental energy I expended, so I went with option A, the Eiffel Tower, which matched Kellie’s response. Despite answering these questions correctly, we flubbed a few others and didn’t win. We took second and received an assortment of cheap ship prizes.