Knowing Me, Knowing You

(Here's a note I found in my computer from a half-hearted 2014 cruise ship journal...)

I love ABBA. There's a lot of ABBA on board, and just like dyspareunia is better than no pareunia at all (look that one up, vocabulary fans), even bad ABBA is better than no ABBA, and good ABBA is beat only by...well, better ABBA.

I'm sitting here having breakfast next to the pool at 10:30 because I accidentally woke up too early, and over the ship's speakers I begin the hear a familiar strain.  It's the introductory bars to "Dancing Queen, and as the infinite buffet fills my stomach the music fills my soul, and soon I'm rocking out in full Air Benny (especially the part where I'm having the time of my liiiiiiiiife...OOOOOOO) because I don't know anyone here and my chances of winding up on YouTube in any kind of traceable way is pretty small.  Of course, no one else cares what I do, as they are either too involved in their own breakfast ("Look, Morty!  It's all free!  But don't eat that.  It's bad for your heart.  Have some fruit.") or sitting in an ark-lie fashion, two-by-two in painful silence by the pool ("There's a reason we've not gone on vacation, Phil, and this is it") to care.  The notes fade, but a few songs later and a cup of tea it's...could it be?  YES!  It's Super Trooper, the song most notable as The One That DrivesMy Kid Crazy because when I'm driving and it comes on the CD player I'll open the moon roof and stick my hand through the top like Agnetha in the video and he puts down his head and tries to get as low in the seat as possible so no on will see him with this psycho Dad.  (This is the same Dad who, when The Teen was reluctant to try on jeans at the store, threatened to sing along to Katy Perry's California Gurls on the store's music track.  He was in the fitting room and half undressed the moment I raised my hands to represent.)

So I'm especially looking forward to the Salute to Disco show they're having later this week.  I've informed The Teen thusly that we will be going to that show so he can see how cool his Dad was back in high school (which, of course, is a blatant lie.  The Captain of the Quiz Team is not a high-cool post.)  He says disco is dead, and when I point out to him that it still lives in the hearts and minds of those who knew it, which is the best kind of immortality, he points out right back that Hearts & Minds is the name of the wedding chapel on board where they also offer seminars on The Non-Surgical Facelift and Your Tired and Aching Feet, for which I have no response other than to say that disco now lives in the hearts and minds of those now old enough to need non-surgical facelifts and to complain about their feet.  Turn Out the Lights, Sweet Darling.

Speaking of ABBA, the girlfriend (to whom from now on I shall refer to as the "Dental Amazon Empress" or a variation thereof) has a theory about the musical Mama Mia, which is that it should be called "You're Mom's a Whore!"  According to her, the mother slept with three different guys within the same week and she has no idea who the father is?  Doesn't that meet whore criteria?  I never thought of it that way.  Same notes, same lyrics, new and fresh insights all the time.  Just like the Shakespeare and the Bible...such is the power of ABBA.