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The Curse of the Competent
By Laurel Ross
In
the fall, I took a trip to some of the Greek Islands,
along with Venice, Istanbul and Dubrovnik. I couldn’t
wait to get away and relax. I went with a ‘Singles
Group’ and allowed the travel organizer to
match me with a roommate. Off I went. Our tour organizer,
Mr. Incompetent, was anything but organized. In
fact, he is one of the least competent human beings
I have ever met able to hold a job. I subsequently
learned that his mother owns the company, which
explains how he is able to hold a job. Our “singles
trip” turned out to be 26 women and 4 men,
including Mr. Incompetent.
My roommate
turned out to be ok, about 20 years older then me,
and incredibly dull. I realized that its one thing
to share a room with a friend, another to share
a room with a complete stranger. In the future,
I really do need a space of my own. But my roommate
and space issues turned out to be the least of my
worries.
By the
second night of the trip, I knew just about everybody
in our group thanks to a reasonably good ability
to shmooze. After a long day of touring, we danced
and partied and celebrated late into the night.
Having had only about 6 hours sleep in the prior
48 hours, I was a bit tired, and turned in around
2 a.m. My roommate was asleep, and I changed quietly
in the dark. As I was about to climb into bed, I
heard my name being shouted down the corridor of
the ship. I opened the door, and saw one of the
group members, Nan, sobbing in the hallway, calling
out my name.
Nan had
also had her roommate, Tanya, selected by the tour
organizer. While Nan was out, Tanya had taken it
upon herself to go through Nan’s personal
belongings. She found a postcard Nan had written
to a friend, which read “my roommate’s
name is Tanya, I wouldn’t recognize her in
a crowd. She was nicknamed LaLa, because she lives
in LA.” Tanya somehow decided that this postcard
was a personal attack. When Nan returned to her
room around 2:00 a.m., Tanya immediately began to
curse and threaten Nan. After listening to Tanya’s
abuse for five minutes, and feeling incredibly threatened,
Nan fled the room and went looking for me. Not our
paid tour organizer, but me. Oy. Welcome to the
curse of competency.
So there
I was, at 2:30 a.m., searching for a solution, with
a hyperventilating Nan sobbing in my room. I went
to the Purser’s desk and put them on notice
of the situation, and advising that due to the threats
against Nan, she would need a new room. Then off
to find Mr. Competent. Found him in the casino,
putting nickels in a slot machine, drinking a pink
drink with an umbrella, utterly useless. I had to
drag him to the Purser, as he was technically in
charge of the situation. Next, I sent Mr. Incompetent
to deal with Tanya and advise her that her actions
and threats to Nan would preclude her from any further
group activities. At 4 a.m. I finally crawled into
bed.
The rest
of my vacation was colored by this incident. By
morning, the story was all over our group. Most
of the group knew the real story, while one or two
people chose to believe that I had just asserted
myself into the situation, and made a mountain out
of a molehill. Either way, my stress free, relaxing
trip was over. Nan became an albatross, always nearby,
terrified that she might run into Tanya. And whenever
another problem arose (and thanks to Mr. Incompetent,
there were plenty), from buses to scheduling, people
turned to me to solve the problem. Just the relaxing
vacation I had hoped for.
I’ve
remained friends with about six of the people I
met on the trip. We’ve decided we want to
travel together again, and but without Mr. Incompetent
running the show. We’re trying to put a group
together for the fall to cruise either the South
Pacific or the coast of Spain, Italy and France.
Everyone is offering to lend a hand, and the good
part is, these are competent people. So this could
be fun…
Editors Note: Laurel Ross welcomes your (gentle)
comments. Her email is LaurelRoss39@aol.com
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