Monica Sarli

I love Valentine’s Day. I mean, what’s not to love? It’s the one day a year that our special someone. . . is reminded by every marketing and merchandising avenue in the world how important it is to spend money on us.

Did you catch that cynicism? In reality, I’ve been pretty lucky when it comes to guys bringing me gifts. Steve loved to give me things. He was always coming home with flowers or sparklies. After Steve was Arne. He was liked giving me things, especially flowers. He’d bring them home any old time at all. Of course, I’d always find myself wondering who he’d ripped off so he could buy me that bunch of roses. Even my last guy, Johnny Appleseed, was great gift giving. In fact, he was paranoid about what he was going to give me. (He got that way after he tried giving me a Seal-a-meal for Christmas). He never failed to check in with me about what it was I expected.

But before Johnny was Towel Boy. Towel Boy, who got his nickname because he ran the tanning salon we co-owned, was younger than me, Italian and gorgeous. I met him in Phoenix about eight years ago, and fell for him like a ton of bricks. There was a lot to be attracted to: he was Italian (always a plus on my list), genuinely nice, hard working, interesting, intelligent. The only thing that kept us from getting really serious was that he eventually wanted to have children. Then and now, kids are something that even if I could produce I wouldn’t.

Knowing that our relationship wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, forever didn’t stop me from giving him my whole heart. That’s me. I want what I want when I want it. And, really, he was a great guy, totally worth the pain I knew would one day come.

For a few years everything was great. We traveled the world and generally enjoyed being together. When he decided he wanted to stop being someone else’s employee and build his own future I was not only one hundred percent behind him, I was willing to be both his partner and his bank. After researching the possibilities, we settled on a tanning salon. That Valentine’s Day found us working night and day to meet the salon’s grand opening date only weeks away.

Here’s what you need to know about what happened next. Towel Boy hated Valentine’s Day. He said it was a day created to force men into buying presents for their wives and girlfriends, presents that didn’t mean anything. He didn’t want anyone telling him when or what he should give the women he loved. He wanted the gifts he gave me to come from his heart, not because it happened to be February 14th.

That didn’t stop me from getting him a gift and a card. Valentine’s Day found us in the empty suite next to our new salon while Towel Boy’s brother painted all our salon’s uninstalled doors. I handed Towel Boy the gift and card I’d chosen just for him. He looked at them and grunted. There wasn’t even a “thank you” or a “happy Valentine’s day to you, too” from him. Needless to say, my feelings were hurt. I guess I figured he owed me a thank you because of all I was doing for him with the salon. Shame on me for harboring expectations when I knew what he thought of the day!

Even after our relationship came to its natural end we remained business partners and friends. He finally moved on after we sold our extremely successful salon a few years later. Happy Valentine’s Day, Towel Boy! I wish you much happiness and many children in your new marriage!

Steve and I fell in love with cruising after we cleaned up. That’s when we discovered that as long as we weren’t using we had enough money for . . . vacations! That’s how we ended up on the Seaborne Spirit, which in 1992 was one of the newest, most luxurious and certain most expensive liner afloat.

Or rather, how we ended up OFF the Spirit on the morning of August 15th.

Around dawn Steve and I were awakened by the captain’s voice over the loudspeaker informing all the passengers that a fire had broken out on board and we were to put on our lifejackets and make our way to our assigned lifeboats. We were apparently one of the few to hear this, because by the time we left our cabin dressed in shorts and tee shirts, our lifejackets on and Steve with his wallet in hand, cabin stewards were opening doors and dragging PJ-clad, protesting passengers from their rooms.

We made our way to our lifeboat, which happens to be the same one the Purser uses. Travel hint: always get yourself assigned to Purser’s life boat, because this is the first lifeboat to be rescued. That’s because the Purser carries all the ship’s important documents—like your passport.

Before long we were bobbing on the ocean watching black smoke billow out of the Spirit. The sea was rough that morning and it was cold. Before long I was heartily grateful that I 1) heard the captain’s announcement, 2) thought to take my Dramamine before leaving the cabin and 3) that I’m not in my seventies.

It turns out that seventy is the average age of the Seabourn’s passengers. In my lifeboat all the old men are clutched together talking lawsuit; it turns out that there was a whole New York law firm taking a company vacation on the Seaborne. All the women were in their nighties, and most of them still had curlers in their hair and night cream smeared on their faces. Each and every one of them clutch their makeup bags. A few are actually trying to put on their faces as the lifeboat bobs and dips. Not an easy task!

I’m guessing these women have never once appeared in public without makeup, let alone dressed in their nightwear. Needless to say, they aren’t especially keen on the idea of being seen on international television without all their female armor in place. Did I mention that within the hour CNN Europe had helicopters hovering overhead, filming us?

We’re out there on the cold Mediterranean for a couple of hours before our first rescuer appears: an Italian cruise liner. Before long we’re pulling up against the ship, which I swear is seven stories tall. A rope ladder drops down the side of the liner and I’m standing on the lifeboat bench, clutching the sides of the ladder with all my might.

I’m supposed to go first. (Just so you know, Steve and I did both offer to wait until the older folk were safe. The Seabourn crew members politely declined our offer.)

My heart in my throat, I tuck my feet into the rung, let the flow of the ocean swing me into the side of the ship, scurry up a few rungs before the ocean rolls the liner toward me. All of a sudden I’m flying out over open water. Again the ocean shifts and the ladder swings back toward the ship. I brace myself, hit the liner then scurry up another couple of rungs.

Oh yeah, I’m really glad I’m not wearing a nightgown.

At last I clamber onto the liner’s deck and fall happily into the arms of a waiting crewman. I shuck my bulky life vest and they wrap me in a blanket, set me in a deck chair and put a cup of warm, wonderful Italian coffee in my hands.

Steve soon joins me. We watch as one by one the elderly women appear on deck. One manages the climb in her pajamas and slippers while keeping her makeup bag clutched firmly beneath one arm! Their husbands follow. By then an Italian freighter and an Italian Naval vessel have joined the rescue.

By nine thirty A.M. all one hundred and seventy-eight of the Seabourn Spirit’s passengers are escorted through a horde of international photographers in Genoa’s port.

We’re taken to Genoa’s finest hotel where we met with the Norwegian owner of the line. He offered to let us stay in the hotel as long as we liked on his tab, provided a jogging suit for every one of the passengers—can you picture all those elderly lawyers and their wives in identical athletic wear? it was like being on the USA’s team for the Senior Olympics—refunded our money and reimbursed our travel costs.

This wasn’t the end of the Seabourn Spirit’s adventures. Sailors are a really superstitious group of people and one of their beliefs is that each ship has a life and a mind of its own. In the case of the Spirit you have to wonder. In 2005 the liner was attached by Somali pirates and—just like our fire—all aboard survived without any loss of life.