Muster

Muster on a pleasure cruise is a little bit funny until you stop and consider what’s going on. It's a little like having a Halloween party in June because you hard there was a Satanic cult just down the street with human sacrifices on their agenda.

The faces of passengers range from comical to surly at being made to perform this ritual, and that which would otherwise be alarming is rendered grotesque when framed by a fluorescent orange life vest. After the herding and the lining up, you expect to be ear-tagged or branded.

If an emergency evacuation were to happen in the late evening, I’m amused by what I think this might look like. I see human cattle with pajamas and undergarments beneath their life vests. In the same emergency during dinner, I imagine there would be various types of gourmet food splattered upon formal wear.

I’ve seen enough disaster movies and at least three movies based on the sinking of the Titanic to know certain things. First of all, muster doesn’t happen. Instead, everyone scurries about like wet rats, and water gushes from almost everywhere. Second, if you escape but aren’t in a lifeboat, you will be sucked under by the submerging ship or freeze to death. Third, in the event that you survive, you will live a life of guilt for all those in steerage who died so you would have a place on an escape vessel. And last, the fact is that pretty much everyone dies except Molly Brown.

Muster is like a fire drill. No one takes it seriously, and no one remembers it in a crisis. There are only two things you really need to know if the cruise ship is sinking during your holiday. These things are that anything with the ship’s name can be sold on eBay, and while the ship is going down all the bars are open.