Summer is over

An adorable toddler, her tutu-style bathing suit covering her swim diaper, kept falling over like a drunken sailor. The enthusiastic waves crashed, then washed up the sand to her chubby little feet, knocking her down. She giggled every time, but her mother had a different reaction. The “Karen” grabbed her daughter’s hand and marched over to my station. She shaded her face from the sun with her hand as she looked up my ladder, ignoring the child’s whines to go back to the water, and pointed her finger up at me. “This is completely unsafe,” she hollered. “These waves are too strong and keep knocking my daughter down. You need to do something about it now!” I would have been dumbfounded, but it wasn’t the first time someone had demanded I turn the waves down. Yup, another written complaint about me being dismissive and unconcerned about safety would be on its way to the city in no time.

There was no shortage of idiots on the beach. I’ve been scolded for staring at children in the water, though keeping an I on them while they swim is literally my job. I’ve been yelled at for my whistle being too loud, stressing out someone’s kid. Blowing the whistle prevented that kid from a potential drowning in a rip current. I’ve been reported for bad customer service when a family asked me to watch their beach blanket while they took a walk – which, of course, would have taken my eyes off the swimmers. I’ve even been cussed out after someone swallowed ocean water. They were angry that it tasted too salty.

I thought becoming a lifeguard would perfect my tan, give my long locks some natural highlights, and make me popular with the opposite sex. But I can’t wait for summer to be over.

Picturesque mountains frame either side of the blue glacier that was steadily shrinking in size a each year. Brilliant white snow hugs ridges anywhere it can along the rocks and ice and fluffy clouds streak the sky in a way that feels like a painting. The water is glassy and perfect today. The ship happened to be the only one here, which was becoming more unusual since this location has gotten so popular. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you can see whales here. Whales are incredible to see anywhere, but with the minimally disrupted natural beauty of this bay, it felt extra special to see them here. Or, at least it used to feel special. Sometimes, if you spend enough time looking at something extraordinary, the novelty wears off and everything else becomes impossible to ignore. In this case, that would be hoards of grumpy, poor-humored retirees with way too much disposable income, never ending requests (more like demands, really), and remarkably little consideration for the people in charge of their creature comforts.

Alaska might be a dream destination for many. A cruise vacation might be a once in a lifetime trip. Neither applied to Collins. The guests she attended to were often as ungrateful as they were unremarkable… which felt like a slap in the face considering this was exactly what she was trying to escape. Collins had grown up accustomed moving often due to her father’s career in the Army, but by the time she entered middle school, his orders remained in Fort Wainwright. Fairbanks consisted of three very distinct kinds of people. The first was the ones who were born and raised here and always felt the need to make any transplants feel like they didn’t quite get what it was like to be from here, no matter how long someone had spent living here. The second were people like our family: here because of the military. The third was the worst. The tourists. Aloof, obnoxious, and infuriatingly affluent. It wasn’t much of a stretch to say Collins resented the ease at which they spent money and their ability to come and go as they pleased as a result of it. With that in mind, choosing to work in the tourism industry seems like a bad decision… but she refused the only two other options she could come up with. 

Stay here and figure it out. Absolutely not.

Join the military. Hell. NO.

That’s how she ended up working on a cruise ship.

Collins hadn’t really considered that she might end up back in Alaska when she first applied to work for Highlight Cruise Lines. She still hadn’t realized it when she excitedly accepted the position of “hospitality specialist” which sounded fancy, but really just ended up being the company’s way of making sure they could use you for pretty much whatever jobs needed doing on the ship. When the reality that she’d be returning had finally hit her, it was too late to back out. She was already at training in a Florida, scheduled to finish just in time to depart on her new home for the next 8 months, bound straight for the place she had hoped to leave behind. The worst part was that her ship would be spending the next six months cruising up and down the Alaskan coast, leaving a pitiful two months in her contract to be somewhere else. She spent many nights laying in bed kicking herself for not thinking to pursue a career at a cruise line that didn't have so many Alaska itineraries. Once the summer season was over and the state all but iced itself off from the rest of the U.S., Collins was more than ready to greet the chintzy, easy-to-please crowd of Caribbean cruisers with open wide arms and a grin on her face.