Honeymoon Part 4 (AKA Funny names, Food and Fried Skin)

Sixth lesson learned: I will never get used to being called "milady." Literally this began the moment we arrived at the resort. Suddenly, within a span of just a few minutes, the woman who was checking us in called me "milady" like five times. And I couldn't figure out who she was addressing! I looked around to see if it was Renaissance Fair night, but I saw no wreaths of flowers in anyones hair. I decided it was just this particular woman's quirk, but the next day I heard it again. And the day after that. And it never got any more normal. If only they would have called the Husband "my lord," I might have been able to get in on the game, but he got plain old "sir." (Although he did have to contend with men who wanted to do elaborate homeboy-type handshakes, which he did NOT look comfortable attempting.)

Seventh lesson learned: If you order a vegetarian shepherds pie at the pub, you’ll get some mashed potatoes on top of vegetables (no meat substitute in sight!). And if you order the beef Wellington, which is supposed to be encased in puff pastry according to the menu, you’ll get a piece of beef – no pastry in sight. When you point that out to the waitress, she won’t care. Like, really won’t care.

I'll admit that my new vegetarian way of life seriously compromised my food choices at the resort, but our complaints with the food went a lot deeper than not having options. In what we assume is an attempt to please even the weakest of palates, they actually managed to remove the majority of taste from all of the dishes. Even the dinner buns, which were my saving grace during seven months of cruise ship employment in 2001, were bland. A container of chocolate ice cream managed to taste just like...ice. It was SO weird. And so disappointing. Thank goodness for triple word scores to help take our mind off of the mediocrity.



Eighth lesson learned: Some people take tanning really, really seriously. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since I frequently, inadvertently inhale copious amounts of cigarette smoke while trying to walk down Yonge Street during my lunch hours. Those people obviously all know about lung cancer and yet still feel compelled to singe their oesophaguses with burning hot carcinogens. So asking the people who hit the sunbeds at 8am with their bottles of oil and their fierce determination to “get a little colour” on their internal organs so that they match their leather handbag exteriors, if they know about skin cancer would probably just be a waste of my breath. But truly – why are we under the impression that premature wrinkles, age spots and a higher probability of experiencing chemotherapy in our lives is more attractive than milky (read: pasty) white skin? Considering that the current estimate is that 1 in 3 Canadians will have cancer in their lifetimes, I guess I should be glad that these obsessives are tipping the scale away from my direction.