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Brooke: “Ric and I like building things. We met at a Startup Weekend a few years ago where contestants build a business in a weekend. He won. We’ve been friends since. When my wife decided to take a road trip to Canada with her girlfriends I decided to go on a cruise to Bermuda and the Bahamas. I invited Ric. Together we interviewed other cruisers and built this website.”

Ric: “This was my first cruise. To be honest, I was a little worried about whether I’d like it, but it was a new experience and I thought I’d try it once.”

Brooke: “This was my 25th cruise. When I ran a business nearly every year I’d take my team on a cruise for a week as an off-site. Colleagues and I will go on a cruise if we have some work to do and  we don’t want interruptions. It’s also my favorite way of traveling to Europe. I’ve done five crossings so far.”

Ric: “It exceeded my expectations in all regards. The food was good and the service was amazing. I loved Bermuda. Swimming in the Bahamas was amazing. Brooke and I got to know each other better. And, the people we met were amazing. The only disappointment was that we never had time to go to a show.”

Brooke: “For me, travel is about transformation. ‘It’s a funny thing about coming home, ‘ goes a quote that’s been misattributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald. ‘Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you.’ Although the ship itself hasn’t changed me, the people we’ve met along the way have changed me. Ric has changed me. Even Bermuda has changed me.”

We met a beautiful young woman who had lots of tattoos.

We asked her if she could tell us a story.

“Of course. Every one of my tats tells a story.”

She told us the story of each one.

Now we know, but we’re not telling you. 

If you want to know what someone’s tattoos mean you’ll have to overcome your shyness and ask them yourself.

We met a doctor traveling with a friend.

“When I was young I didn’t think I was smart enough to be a doctor. But then I had these sinus problems and I went to all these different doctors and they told me all different things that were wrong. So, I figured it out myself. I thought to myself, ‘These doctors aren’t so smart.’”

“But, what kind of doctor should I be? I like to see immediate results. If you give someone pills it might take months before you find out if it works. But an anesthesiologist sees immediate results. So that’s what I became.”

“I made good money and I bought apartments as an investment. Eventually I had so many apartments that it was hard to care about my patients and my tenants equally so I decided to give up medicine.”

“I met this carpenter who helped with my apartments. He really cared about the welfare of my tenants so I hired him. We are on this cruise together.”

We also met the doctor’s friend.

“I would lay floors: carpet, hardwood, vinyl, marble and ceramic. How did I get into it? When I was 19, I was looking around for something to do. I looked at my parents. They did a lot of work on their house; painting, walls, windows… everything but the floors. They always hired someone to do the floors. All the dust and paint and everything ends up on the floors so someone’s got to redo the floors last. That’s how I decided that is what I would do.”

“You’re down on the floor all the time. The job sucks, but I liked the money; it was good money. Five years in I said to myself that I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life. But sure enough, that’s what I did.”

“I was a member of Local 1310 in St. Louis. There was this truck driver who would bring new materials to the job site and haul off the rubbish at the end. I told him I could teach him my trade and then he could go down to the union hall and get a better paying job”

“He said, ‘I can’t do that.’ I told him, ‘Don’t ever say you can’t do something. Say, ‘I haven’t done that yet.’”

“Eventually I met this doctor who owned a bunch of apartments. He had a lot of family members working for him. The doctor really cared about the tenants but the others didn’t so much. I saw a void and I asked if I could work for him because I really care. If you care, people really like it. He treats me like family.”

We met a charming woman traveling with her parents and sister. We guessed her age to be 20 years younger than it was. 

We asked her to say something wise.

“You don’t need to love a woman,” she said, “but never say you do if you don’t.”

We asked a woman and her son to tell us stories that taught a lesson.

Her story:

“After we had our first child, we weren’t sure we wanted more children. But then I got pregnant again. My husband and I went to the doctor on April 1, 2015. He had an ultrasound machine right there in the office, so he said, “Let’s take a look.”

“I knew immediately but my husband didn’t know how to interpret what he was seeing. When the doctor told him he thought it was an April Fool’s joke. We had twins. Sometimes blessings come even when you’re not asking for them.”

Her son’s story:

“The very first time I got to ride in the front of the car it was just me and my dad. I was watching a show on YouTube instead of looking out the window when an oncoming car swerved into our lane and my dad had to go onto the grass to avoid hitting him.”

“We sent a text to my mom, ‘FYI, we almost just died.’ I guess the point is that YouTube can wait. You have to pay attention to the road.”

Their story:

“We flew into Orlando much later than our kids normally go to bed, which is 8:30 religiously. Then it took two hours at the car rental place and by the time we gave us keys we were really grumpy.”

“When we got to the car we became mad because there were six of us and instead of the six seat minivan we thought we were getting, it was a little Toyota Corolla. It was going to be two people in the front and four in the back.”

“My husband is a big man, so it was very hard for him to get in. But, when he bumped the horn with his butt we all laughed so much it hurt. We laughed all the way to the hotel. Sometimes it takes something funny to make things alright again.”

We met a couple swimming in the ocean. They told us a scary story.

“My husband and I have three children. One day we were in the ocean playing around. The sea was very calm and we weren’t paying attention. Then out of nowhere came a big wave.”

“My husband clutched two of the children and dove under the wave. They were okay.”

“I tried holding our other child above the wave but I lost him. He ended up about 30 feet from me. I was able to spot his blonde hair under the water and get to him. He was okay, but it was the scariest day of my life.”

“Is there a lesson? Have you seen Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger? The ocean is like a kindergarten class. Never turn your back to it.”

We met a young man in a jacuzzi. We asked him to tell us a story.

He told us one, but we can’t remember anything about it – it was that boring. So we asked him if he had a better story.

He did. This one we remember.

“I’m a submariner with the Navy. When you are in the military there isn’t much free time so often you make a decision to marry someone quickly. There was this girl I thought I was going to marry until we went on a road trip together. That’s when I learned that she smoked marijuana every day and many other things I didn’t know before. We broke up. She left me with debts and a Chocolate Labrador Retriever.”

“Later I was walking my dog in a park when this girl came up with a German Shepherd. The two dogs start nuzzling and nipping at each other. A man in the park asked us how long we had been married. We told them we’d just met.”

“I asked the girl if we could meet again so our dogs could have a playdate. She suggested we meet after she got off work. I followed her home and it turned out to  be her parent’s house. Her dad had been in the military and we stayed up all night doing shots and telling stories.”

“The next morning she told me we could date but we weren’t going to have sex for three months. I was disappointed; I like having sex on the first date.”

“So we dated and exactly three months later she was moving to live closer to me. I suggested we could live together. That was the first time we had sex.”

“Eventually we got married. We were walking our dogs in the same park when the same guy greeted us and we told him that now we were married. I guess I have to thank my prior girlfriend for leaving me the Chocolate Lab.”

At Glass Beach in Bermuda we met a happy woman who told us a sad story.

“I had a husband who was a dealer. He went to sell cocaine to someone his friend knew. Instead of paying, the guy shot my husband. It took out much of his shoulder.”

“The friend tried driving my husband to the hospital in my husband’s car but he didn’t know how to drive a stick and he ruined the clutch. They ended up calling a medivac helicopter.”

“At the hospital they induced a coma. It took a long time for him to recover. I visited him every day but I never missed a day of work nor did I cry or feel any emotion.”

“The lesson? Never love someone who believes their own lies; it hardens the heart.”

We had breakfast with a woman from New England. We asked her if she could tell us a funny story. Like all the people whose images we use, she signed our Media Release Form.

“My parents were married for 67 years. I never heard my mom curse growing up. Once someone passed her going up a hill and she said, “Go suck an egg.” That was the worst thing I ever heard her say.”

“My mom worked at the Noble and Cooley drum factory. She was “head maker” making symbols. When I turned 16, I went to work there also making tripod legs at first. My sisters worked there too. All of us had interesting job titles.”

“Every winter they would lay a bunch of us off for the season, so we would all go down to the unemployment office. The people there always had the newest person in the office process us because they didn’t know what they were in for.

“They would start out with this old woman who was over 65 in age and less than five foot tall.”

“‘What do you do?’ they would ask her.”

“‘I’m a hooker,’” she said. Then the rest would reply in turn. ‘I’m a screwer.’ ‘I’m a stripper.’ ‘I’m a head maker. ‘I’m a pricker.’ ‘I’m a bag lady.’ and so on.”

We met a young couple who were celebrating having taken the MCATs. We asked her to tell us their greatest fear.

“We met in the 10th grade but I hardly knew him because he was such a bookworm. My parents got divorced and I moved to Florida to be with my dad and brother. We moved back to Puerto Rico for my senior year. Neither of us danced so at a party we spent all the time talking to each other. We began hanging out a lot.” 

“We were in physics together and he gave me so much help studying that eventually, I asked him, ‘So, when are you going to ask me out?’”

“He thought about it for a second and said,  “Yea, let’s go to a movie.’” He was so nervous we didn’t do anything. Our first kiss wasn’t until later on December 8, his birthday.”

“We discovered we had many things is common. For example, his grandmother sold an apartment to my dad when my parents got divorced. Even though we didn’t know each other then, I grew up in the same room where Jon would study on the weekends.”

“We just talked until May 16 when he asked if I would be his girlfriend. We tried having sex but we were both so scared nothing really happened.”

“We dated all through college but because of the distance between us we only saw each other on the weekends. We both decided to go to medical school. We took a year off and both of us just took the MCATs. That’s what we’re celebrating on this cruise.”

“Our greatest fear? We end up going to different medical schools that are too far apart for us to live together.”

We met a man who was a military pilot. He told us a story about someone he admired.

“So, there we were. I’m part of a group of 8 or 9 guys and we’re all hungover.  There is this one guy specifically –  and I’m going to change his name to Sminken –  let’s say Bob Sminken –  Bob was old. He’d flown helicopters in Vietnam and he was still doing it at close to 60, which now that I’m a 51-year-old man I’m thinking “yea, sure you can still do it” but at the time when I was 21 it was amazing he was still hanging – running with everyone… getting in the aircraft –  he was an amazing pilot. He could fly anything. Now, I’m a pilot but back then I was a backseater on a Blackhawk, used primarily by the 160th.”

“Anyway, we’re all hungover and it’s hot-hot-hot there in Phuket [Thailand] and we’re rubbing the sleep out of our eyes. So we go walking down by the beach and the nice hotels and it’s noon, so time to have a drink. Bob, who is kind of the leader, says “Oh-oh, guys. I might need to take a break.”

“Just to our left was a nice hotel with seven or eight steps that led up to the door. Bob ran up the steps  and got to the doorman and he said, ‘Pardon me my good man, would you know where…’ We’re all watching Bob and all of a sudden a brown stripe ran down the side of his leg right through his white pants.”

“‘Disregard,’ Bob says, ‘I have shat myself. The lavatory sir.’”

“The doorman points him the right way. The rest of us go to the hotel bar. We were there for 10 or 15 minutes. Since I’m the new guy, they all say, ‘Go in the bathroom and check on Bob.’”

“Now the thing you have to understand about Bob is that he was gruff… an angry old guy. And, back in those days it was acceptable for an old guy to punch a young guy in the face… certainly a new guy like me. I’d been punched in the face by him lots of times. ‘It just means I love ya,’ he’s day.”

“So, reluctantly I walk into the bathroom and there is Bob. He’s standing at the sink. And you’ve got to understand he wasn’t wearing underwear; no Vietnam guy would wear underwear because that’s how you get jungle rot.”

“So there is Bob standing with his old man wrinkly butt hanging out of his collared shirt washing the diarrhea out of his white shorts.”

“Tourists are walking up to wash their hands and Bob is like, “Hey; how’s it going.” Bob’s completely unphased. ‘Just cleaning the shit out of my pants; no big deal.’”

“He sees me coming and he tells me, ‘You tell those $%#@’ing mother%$@#ers I’ll be there when I’m $%##ing good and ready.’”

“For the next hour and a half Bob walked around Phuket, Thailand, with his junk pressed against his white shorts and everyone and their brother could see it and he didn’t care. I think he walked a little taller. That was the kind of guy Bob was.”

We met a man and offered to buy him a drink if he told us a story. He said he didn’t drink but told us a story anyway.

“When the pandemic hit I began drinking too much out of loneliness and boredom. My belly became big. One day I had this water bottle with some water left in it. I filled it up the rest of the way with vodka.”

“The next morning I forgot and I watered my plants with it. By the afternoon the plants had wilted and I thought to myself, ‘If it can do that to the plants, what is it doing to me?’ So I quit.”

“Alcohol is fake fun and during the pandemic I drank all the fun out of it.”

We met a woman who grew up on a farm. We asked her what advice she gives her children.

“I tell my daughter what my mom told me: Never name the ones you’re going to eat.”