Hot Fudge and Taxes

Sea day. Bobbi went to pencil sketching in the morning and nails in the afternoon. Nails are very difficult on this ship. You make your appointment a month and a half in advance and then they have it all screwed up when you arrive. So you get your exercise by yelling at the idiots.

It was a cold and windy day and kept getting worse through the night. All these modern ships are built with flat bottoms like a barge. They are also relatively short and wide. This makes for a shallow draft to be able to enter more harbors but makes for a lousy ride in rough seas. When you hit a really big wave the bow gets out of the water enough to get air under it. It then comes back down like a flat pan being slammed into a tub of water. Not only do you get the bang from the flat bottom slamming down, but now the trapped air travels the length of the ship causing it to wiggle violently. This makes for wonderful sleeping and walking conditions, not.

However, to keep our strength up, we managed not to miss any meals. For tonight I had made reservations at Latitudes. For this week it has been decorated as an outback camp. There were tents to eat under and the regular furniture had been replaced with portable tables and outdoor plastic chairs. Aussie folk music was playing. The waiters and waitresses were dressed in Aussie outback clothing and the bus boys were made up like Aborigines with the make up and all. The floors were covered in tree bark and wood chips. There were hay bales and straw mats on the walls. I wouldn’t want to be the one who has to clean up this mess.

Bobbi wanted pictures so a cute little waitress jumped into my lap. I resisted fiercely, not. Darn, something happened and the camera did not take the picture and she had to come back and sit on my lap again.

They had already served kangaroo and crocodile meat in the buffet restaurant. Tonight we had Aussie BBQ. They served us ribs, filet, shrimp, corn on the cob and baked potato. They brought us soup in tin mugs and salad in plastic dishes. We didn’t like the dessert so they went down to the restaurant below and brought up different kinds of ice creams and pots of whip cream and hot fudge.

That was about it except for the excitement earlier in the day. When I had gone down to the computer room in the morning, to send this log, I also read my incoming email. Slave Vicki is taking care of my house and checking my mail while I am gone. Among other various things she wrote about was mention of a particular letter taped to a shelf in my home computer room.

She asked if it was something that was supposed to be put in the mail. It was addressed to the IRS. That made my day. Before we left on this cruise I had to send in two quarterly estimate payments to the IRS, as we will be gone for two quarters. I must have asked Bobbi at least 10 times if she was sure she put it in the mail. She said she was sure she did. Obviously she was not.

I then spent quite some time making up legal forms for her to sign. They pretty much say that she admits she is totally responsible for not paying those taxes and is to be the one going to jail. I also think I now know why that guy might be missing from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship.

Hopefully my slave got the letter I sent, saying to see if it is a check to the IRS and if so to drop everything and hand deliver it to the address on the envelope in Atlanta, GA.

I also explained to Bobbi there would be a large fine besides the jail time so we cannot afford to buy any more junk on this trip. I wonder how long that one will work?

I do keep trying.

Jail Bird Sherm Out.

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)