Dildo-Gate 2013

I know how much you guys like to hear about my sexual escapades, but if you look at the top of your browser then you'll be reminded that there is often a second subject addressed in my epic stories of booze and regret. The following, sadly, is a tale of the latter with not much of the former. But fret not, because I assure you that this tale of unwarranted unemployment is as epic if not more epic than most of my sexual escapades and I can pretty much guarantee that by the end of this post you're going to wish you were there to see it happen. Fasten your seat belts and buckle up your strap-ons cause here's the story of how I got fired because of a dildo…

Summer of 2012 (despite some seemingly minor interactions of good fun and one blacked-out encounter with what was most definitely the largest penis I have ever seen) was a complete fuck-nozzle of a time for me. I worked in about 6 different bars and restaurants including but not limited to a bowling alley, a coffee house with a full bar that shut down as soon as it opened, and of course The Dump. Surprisingly enough I was only fired from one of those places (I was stealing, slash fired because a guest complained about her BBQ sauce… true story), the rest either shut down with little to no warning or I just genuinely hated my life there. I was also teaching flying trapeze at a circus school out in Brooklyn and that was pretty much my only release from the hell that was my day-to-day life and it was there that I saw a poster from a cruise line I used to work for seeking "aerialists with a strong dance background." Well fuck my life! If that wasn't a sign from above then I sure as fuck don't know what is. The next day I called the casting director and told him to get me out of the city as soon as possible and a week later (coincidentally the week Hurricane Pecan Sandy tore through the city preventing me from getting all of my affairs in order before I left… that was fun) I was flying back to the rehearsal studio I hadn't seen in over eight years and trying my damnedest not to feel like I was regressing back to where I had first started… even though I was… but with a bigger salary.

In the rehearsal studio it was very clear to myself and everyone else that I was a front-runner for the position of Dance Captain which is essentially the cast's manager while on board the ship. I was the oldest and the strongest dancer, but there was one other girl who seemed to want it a lot more than I did. After they decided to give the position to her I was a little upset and drank about it for a couple of nights which is when I started sleeping with a guy from another cast who was hot as fuck and apparently really into me (HA! I knew there was sex in here somewhere!). One night his friend had to convince him not to sneak into my room while I was sleeping because I had an early morning the next day which felt awesome and weird at the same time because I'm not really used to guys that hot being into me. I'm used to either falling ass-over-taint for a guy that's way out of my league or being stalked by someone I wouldn't look twice at on the subway (unless they were blatantly staring at me and then it just becomes awkward which happens more than you think) so it felt good yet unfamiliar to have some kind of middle ground there.

Our last weekend on land the cast decided to have one last hurrah at the big gay club nearby before being confined to the crappy guest nightclub and crew bar on board. It was there that I taught our singular heterosexual male cast member how to drink like an adult as opposed to chugging beers like a college kid and then passing out before midnight like he usually did. Needless to say he ended up getting kinda hammered anyway and the next thing I knew he was shirtless on some throne decoration having a photo shoot with the almost naked 5'2" go-go boy with a visible ten inch penis wrapped around the waistband of his white speedo… bless his straight little heart. Needless to say my girlfriend Josh and I just rolled our eyes and continued doing shots with the giant Grecian bartender's tiny boyfriend in the corner. I mean… when in doubt, stick to what you know, right? Josh and I had already become instant besties in the cast even with him coming to rehearsals three weeks late not only because of our age and experience compared to everyone else we were working with but also because we shared similar life philosophies of "everyone should be my best friend" plus we both had a thing for sequined stilettos. At some point in the night the bartender's boyfriend went missing and then reappeared with two pills in his hand for us and the phrase "Have fun boys!" Now… this was my third time using piss-poor half drunk judgment and taking some random pill. The first time you can read about in my post titled "Halloween," the second time ended in the giant cocked blackout I mentioned earlier, and this third encounter resulted in me spending the entire day the next day lying on the couch rubbing my nipple while dirty chatting guys on Grindr… that's three out of three "no thank you's"… obviously pills weren't meant for me.

Once we got on board and our rehearsals were over the seemingly sweet and hard working girl I mention earlier who they had appointed the role of Dance Captain quickly turned into a rock solid bitch. Luckily I was one of the few cast members who never felt the wrong end of her piss-poor people skills and anger control issues because believe it or not despite my disdain for every hospitality job I've ever worked, when doing a show I'm one of the hardest workers you'll ever come across mostly because I know how much better it is to be on stage then it is waiting tables in Chelsea. But to the majority of our young, unmotivated, still learning how to be a professional cast members she was a total Ice Queen and I rarely agreed with how she dealt with situations but decided to keep my mouth shut about it and just do my job. One time I remember her saying that people from other departments had complained that she was very unfriendly to which she responded "I'm not here to make friends." Apparently we were on a some kind of reality competition show that I was unaware of since that's the only other time I've ever actually heard that phrase out loud. She used to bitch to me a lot about how being Dance captain wasn't worth the extra pay which I thought was rude as fuck given the fact that I gladly would've taken the position and would've excelled at it but I bit my tongue and let her vent from time to time. Her attitude was so shitty that she even once bitched about having to give everyone in the cast a "positive performance notification" because in her mind no one deserved to be told that they were doing a good job. She had also had a weight problem on a previous contract and was constantly hungry which I think just fueled the fire of internal hate she had for herself and others. I wish I had a picture of the look on both of our faces when the choreographer pointed at the two of us and said "lift couple." It was a combination of genuine shock and "really?" because even though I was the strongest boy she was definitely the biggest girl and there were much clearer choices for girls for me to be tossing over my head. There were multiple occasions where on stage she would miss getting up to my shoulder and I was literally holding her entire body weight with just my right arm and still managed to get her into the right position because I am a mother-fucking pro! And don't you bitches ever forget it. :-)

The one time I did see her loosen up a bit was during a themed cruise that we had towards the beginning of the contract. It was a heavy metal themed cruise and was 4 days and 4 nights of nothing but heavy metal music. Needless to say our 70's themed revue shows were not needed so we got a comfy 4 days off and spent most of that time drinking. One glorious day on the beach we were galavanting about, doing some Entertainment Department "Team Building" (aka: doing shots and acting like fools because none of us had to work that week) when this random boat owner offered up is boating services for free thinking it was gonna get him into one of the girl's bikini bottoms. In his defense, it almost worked, but luckily we collectively stayed sober enough to keep our girls safe while still being drunk enough to get naked and do cannonballs off of the top of the boat into the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. At some point during the day (probably around 1pm when we were all good and sloppy) the beach bar we had been hanging out at filled up with all of the German band members that had been playing on board. About 60% of the people on board were German because let's get serious… German's are the only people who listen to that crap post "Enter Sandman" music video, and these drunk ass Germans weren't fucking around when it came time to party. Their first night on board this girl bit my face. Like, legit tried to take a chunk out of my cheek. Seriously. One of the drummers that we met looked just like my first boyfriend so of course I found it appropriate to tell him that, to which he responded "I'm not gay, but sometimes when I masturbate I stick my thumb in my ass." Thank you for sharing. The end of the day came when some of our female cast members were dancing on the bar while one in particular was holding herself up on a stool. One of the German guys saw this as an ample opportunity to show his friends of this really neat trick he had. At that moment, girls on the bar, me in the corner giving our very homosexual and often times inappropriate Human Resources Manager a lap dance with one testicle hanging out of my speedo, and the bartender pouring tequila shots like it was tap water, this guy stuck his hand down the back of his pants, did who-fucking-knows what, and wiped a giant glob of shit across this poor girl's back without her even realizing it. Luckily one of the other girls did see it and cleaned the poor thing off before taking her back to the ship and putting her to bed. I ended up stumbling back to my room and banging on Josh's door proudly declaring that someone needed to cuddle with me and then spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get into the top bunk without falling to my death. In all, I'd say it was a good day.

It was just past the middle of the contract when I had just paid off the things I needed to pay off, had just bought my first Macbook, and was ready to spend my remaining two months on board saving for my return to the most expensive city in the country when we found out that one of our good friends who was the fitness instructor on board was getting a last minute transfer to another ship. At that point we had not had any parties in the cast hallway (something I was very much NOT used to on any ship I had been on up to that point) mostly out of fear that the Ice Queen would rat us all out and call security on us. It had only been just a few weeks earlier that a poor troubled member of our cast was drinking himself to death because he hated ship life so much and instead of calmly talking him down and getting him into bed safe and sound one night she decided it was appropriate to scream at him even louder than he had been yelling resulting in security being called and his eventual firing. Mind you, a ship was not the environment he needed to be in but he should've left on his terms, not hers. So thinking that it was going to be a small, chill, early hallway party we went ahead and planned it so that we could give our good friend a fond farewell before probably never seeing him again… except on Facebook. Mistake #1: assuming that a ship life party of any kind would be small, chill, or early.

As the night carried on the ruckus ended up conglomerating into my room since I was the one playing the music and my tiny room that I shared with the 36 year old heterosexual Sports Staff Supervisor from Trinidad (talk about miss-matched… but we actually got along really well) had a good 10-12 people from different departments (including Dumpcelo) laughing, drinking, and having a good time. It wasn't crazy late in the night when, as predicted, the Ice Queen shows up in the doorway screaming (not shouting, screaming) at everyone declaring that if we didn't all turn the music off and leave that she would call security and have us all breathalyzed (hmm… I'm noticing a pattern here). I immediately turned off the music and was ready to push everyone out when one of the musicians from the orchestra decided that he was gonna call her out on her piss poor attitude with phrases like "We're just trying to have a good time" "Why do you hate seeing other people have fun?" and "Just pull the stick out of your ass already." Needless to say this only angered her more so we all fled the scene and headed to the crew bar (which was still open so let's get real, it couldn't have been that fucking late) where we all complained about what a bitch she was and why she'll probably die friendless, loveless, and alone. Wah-wah.

Once Josh and I got back down to the hallway I had a completely brilliant plan (to quote Elle Woods) that I thought was going to be both A) a laugh riot for myself and everyone else on the ship and 2) a great way for the Ice Queen to get dose of "lighten the fuck up already" which she very clearly needed. So I went to my room and pulled out the way too thick 9" pink translucent dildo that I had bought and never used because I didn't realize how fucking big the damn thing was until I got it home and took it out of the packaging, and came back out into the hallway with a "Girl! Watch this!" (most of our sentences started with the word girl. In fact, many of our conversations consisted of only the word girl yet we always knew the thought behind it… that's just what girlfriends do.) To which the ever wise Josh responded "Ooh girl… I don't know about that." I should've listened to Josh. Now what happened next is still a little fuzzy because in my head I was saying "Obviously you need this more than I do, so stick this thing up your special purpose already and try and be happy again like we were in middle school!" But what I actually wrote on her dry-erase board was "Put this in your pussy PLEASE!" which comes across as a little more harsh if you're not considering the intention. But intention or no intention I did what I did and then put on my shorts and headed to Dumpcelo's room for yet another secrete cuddle session. Sometimes I'm a serious dumbass.

The next morning I awoke a touch hungover and stumbled back to my room where I proceeded to get ready for our oh-so-sensible 9am rehearsal (for a 10pm show… because according to the Ice Queen we needed to wake up early for rehearsal to make sure we had time to rest during the day for our shows. #thatlogicisflawed) and when I opened my door to leave I noticed everyone standing in the hallway staring down at the Ice Queen's door with looks of shock and horror like they'd never seen a big pink dildo before (actually most of them probably never had). Naturally I gave a little gay gasp myself and continued on to the theater keeping my mouth shut just in case. Once rehearsal started the Ice Queen was not-so-shockingly on a rampage as far as telling everyone what we were all doing wrong (her favorite thing to do) and kept her voice at a nice and even infuriated decibel level. Now, for whatever reason, I had the idea in my head that she must have known that it was me that put the goddamned dildo on her door because for fuck's sake who the hell else on board a ship full of Eastern Europeans and Southeast Asians is gonna own a mother fucking 9" pink translucent dildo?!?!? Assuming that, was mistake number 2… So during the rehearsal I grabbed her hand, gave her a wink and a smile, and pulled her on stage for the Donna Summer section (my favorite section of the show… obvious reasons. I mean, who doesn't love a good "brush the pony-tail" arm swoop to MacArthur's Park?) and for the first time that morning she smiled back at me (actually… that was probably the first time she had smiled that entire week, come to think of it) and in my head I thought "Yeah… we're all good here." And that was mistake number 3.

After rehearsal I was sitting with some of the cast members outside when they all started talking about how and why they thought that the guitarist from the orchestra who had been in the fight with the Ice Queen the night before must have been the one who put the dildo there (yeah… straight British guys in their mid-twenties definitely make it a point to keep giant dildos on hand just in case some bitch pisses them off, I'm sure of it) so I decided to take that opportunity to fess up and let those select few know that I was the one who had (OBVIOUSLY!) placed it there. Needless to say after a couple of hours it finally got back to her and in an effort to "make someone pay for this" as she was overheard saying in the hallway that afternoon, she immediately picked up the phone and called the HR manager to let her know who it was (sadly, the gay HR manager I had given the drunken lap dance to earlier in the contract was on vacation and the fill-in was an older Canadian woman with a stick up her ass. Sucked to be me at that moment). The last time I saw the Ice Queen's face I was walking through the girls dressing room and she was on the phone with God only knows who and giving me a look of hate and furry that would've made a weaker man cry for no reason (in my head her eyes make people melt like in those movies where blood starts coming out of people eyes and mouth and then suddenly they're just a puddle of goo on the floor. You know, like that). The next thing I knew I was setting my costumes for the show when the Production Manager came to escort me down to the security office where I was to fill out a statement about what had happened the night before. After a well-worded written testimony of her clear and apparent anger management issues regarding her tone of voice to the guests in my cabin the night before, the security officer read it to himself and then said to me "What about the thing on her door?" So I added at the bottom of the paragraph: "In an effort to cheer her up, I placed a marital aide on her door knowing that she would think it was funny." Confessing… Mistake. Number. Four.

When I got back to the theater to get ready for the show I was informed that I would not be performing in the show that night (the second time in my life I've ever missed a show… the first time was due to not being able to leave the bathroom for 72 hours) because Ice Queen "doesn't feel comfortable having you on the stage" which was complete and udder horse shit! Obviously the bitch couldn't look me in the eye because she knew that she was just being a spiteful bitch and I didn't really feel like getting melted anyway so I grabbed my show bag and happily took a seat in the audience still thinking that there was no way I could be getting fired for something this ridiculous. Obviously I cheered my ass off for everyone in the cast except her, and laughed my ass off at the empty stage that would've been my solo if she hadn't help fire the only two boys in the cast who knew it, and went to the crew bar that night saying possible goodbyes to people just in case this shit got ridiculous… which it did.

The next morning I was woken up (in Dumpcelo's room mind you) to a call informing me that I had an interview with the Miami-Dade Police Department where even the freaking cop laughed at the situation because let's face it bitches, it's pretty fucking funny. Then I had what's called a Captain's Hearing which is where all of your bosses and their bosses all the way up to the Captain of the ship sit down and decide whether or not you're fired. They had printed out a copy of my disciplinary record which, in 6 contracts over 10 years, simply stated "Nothing on file" because even though I had done plenty of things that I should've been fired for plenty of times (including getting tag-teamed by two guests bent over the washing machine in the costume locker… a personal favorite from that last contract) I was a damn good employee and I knew how to not get caught. In my final defense as the creepy old gay Production Manager sat next to me (he had on more than one occasion got drunk and asked if he could suck my dick which, correct me if I'm wrong, is ACTUAL sexual harassment, as opposed to pulling a prank on someone who lacks a sense of humor until she sees a baby on fire or something) I worded my defense very carefully: "I don't understand how it's possible for me to sexually harass someone who I talk about sex with on a daily basis, have heard having sex from down the hallway, have gone shopping in a store that sells these these items, and has on more than one occasion gone through pictures and videos of men masturbating on my phone in front of the entire cast because that's the kind of relationship we have." To which the dick-bag captain replied "Well, you know Daniel, you never know when you're making someone uncomfortable until they finally get the courage to speak up and say something about it." (I cannot say the next phrase slow enough) Oh, Fuck, Off!

The next thing I knew the captain was chuckling at the term "marital aide" in my statement (fuckin-a, even he knows it's a fucking joke!) and a few short hours later my bags were packed and I was being escorted through immigration. As I gave my final hugs and said goodbyes to the people I really cared about, I sent the Ice Queen a text that read exactly as follows: "I truly hope that one day you can find a way to stop making the people around you as miserable as you are." and I truly meant it. Seriously, an attitude problem that bad can't mean anything other than her life must suck. That night my flight landed in NYC where the World's Tallest Tranny had a reunion and hit the town like we had never painted a goddamned town before all the while spreading the word of how and why I was back in the city two months earlier than planned. I'd say it was needed.

The next day I got a Facebook message from one of the girls in the cast berating me for the text I had sent the Ice Queen because it made her cry. Oh wah-fucking-wah, the bitch made me jobless and homeless in the biggest city in the world!! Broke!!! She deserved a fuck of a lot worse and she could obviously use a little emotional release if you ask me. Apparently the Production Manager tried to pass the blame after I left by telling the cast that by the time they knew it was me that it was to late to save me from the HR manager or some bullshit like that. I knew better than that because I saw the furry in that cunt's eyes when I walked through the dressing room that night and I'm lucky I didn't have a Raiders of the Lost Arch style meltfest all over my costumes afterwards. But life (as it always does) goes on and I got my job back at The Dump (lucky me) and I've since moved on to bigger, better, and higher paying things so I'm not worried about that fat bitch anymore. If anything this situation has taught me to not admit my mistakes and lie through my teeth since the only reason I was fired was because of my own goddamned confession. The dildo still hangs proudly on the back of my bedroom door if for no other reason than to point out how ridiculous the entire situation is, and a small part of me hopes to run into her again just so I can smile and wave at her like a fucking Disney Princess on meth and kill that fat cunt of a bitter angry bitch with unbridled kindness… only because I'm assuming that's what would make her melt. :-)