DUMB DUMB ASKED me if I wanted to go on a cruise for New Year's Eve. I had never been on an ocean journey before and was hesitant because Dumb Dumb was about as much fun as a lawn bowling tournament. Her idea of a good time was going to California Pizza Kitchen and ordering two appetizers instead of one. But in my never-ending mission to get her twenty-eight-year-old hymen popped, I agreed.

"Just you and me will go," she said.

"No fucking way," I said. "I'm inviting Ivory and Lydia too."

"Fine," she said, "but they're not going to want to come with me."

She was right. Lydia and Ivory both told me they'd rather spend New Year's Eve at a Michael Bolton concert and that I was an idiot for having agreed to go in the first place. Upon hearing their totally rational refusals, I rethought my decision and tried to weasel my way out of the deal by telling Dumb Dumb I had a great opportunity to feed the homeless on New Year's and would have to cancel. An hour later I found Dumb Dumb crying in her room. I hate when people cry, especially when it's my fault, so not only did I agree to go with her, I ended up paying her way. Now who's the dumb dumb? I thought.

Right from the start, Dumb Dumb was way too excited about this trip. It's all she talked about for the next three weeks. She went on and on about the fun we were gonna have and all the hot men we would meet. I made her promise to at least let someone feel her boobs or I would tell everyone on board that she was still a virgin.

"You better not!" she yelled. "I'd kill you! Do you think I'll meet someone? Do you think I will? What if I meet my husband on the cruise ship? It's going to be so romantic!"

She would put on one fashion show after another in our apartment, modeling sarongs and different bikini tops.

"What do you think? Do you like the sarong with the polka dots or the one with the sun signs?"

She was exhausting. I was dreading this stupid cruise more than I had dreaded DUI school. It didn't help that Lydia and Ivory had made plans to go away to Aspen on a ski trip with Hugh Grant.

On her final runway walk, she modeled a bikini top with something that looked very similar to a pair of Dolphin shorts that were two sizes too small. If she walked around in that, I'd have to start calling her "Camel Toe."

"Listen, Camel Toe, I mean Dumb Dumb," I explained, "there are going to be a lot of opportunities on this cruise for you to meet someone, so I want you to prepare some conversation topics to bring up."

"I know how to talk to people, Chelsea," she responded.

This couldn't be farther from the truth. The only people Dumb Dumb could relate to were children and slow adults. And unless someone had watched every episode of The Bachelor, or TLC's A Wedding Story, Dumb Dumb was stumped for talking points. She watched reality shows over and over, and not just the original episodes but also reruns of the same episodes, and if TiVo didn't record something she had already seen, she would call her father to ask if he could somehow fix it from New Jersey. I had seen The Bachelor once and decided I wanted to do my own version of the show. It would involve me having sex with all the contestants and then eliminating them based on their penis size. Then, during my rose ceremony, I would wear some shimmery satin Nicole Miller design, preferably in eggplant, and I would say, "Leroy, Tyrone, and Jamal, will you accept these rose?"

I was not looking forward to this trip at all, and the closer we got to New Year's the better everyone else's plans sounded. "It's gonna be amazing, we're gonna meet so many guys," Dumb Dumb would say, ad nauseam.

"Shut up, already! You act like we're going to a man park. If you have high expectations you're only going to be disappointed," I told her. I had very low expectations and felt as if I was definitely going to be disappointed. Plus, I didn't know if I could handle this much alone time with Dumb Dumb. Her earnestness brought out a frightening violent side of me. I would try hard not to yell at her, but it was a constant challenge and I had never been stuck with her for more than a couple hours straight.

"Guess what? You are going to die!" Dumb Dumb exploded. She had just gotten back from the travel agent with our tickets. "It's a booze cruise and we're going to Ensenada!"

I was hoping I would never visit Ensenada again. It's not a place you need to see twice. I had been there a few years before on some overnight adventure with two guys I met at a bar the same night, and I remembered not eating for twenty-four hours. The whole city smelled bad and I'm not a big fan of buying blankets and parkas that have been lying on the pavement. I didn't understand the Mexicans' mentality and wondered how they could be so close to civilization and yet not know about the hard taco shell.

"It's a booze cruise!" she wailed again.

"You don't even drink," I reminded her.

"Well, I will if it's a booze cruise. This is gonna be the most fun ever!"

I excused myself to my room and called my mother in a panic.

I explained to my mother that if I continued along my path of despair, I knew I would end up hurting Dumb Dumb either mentally or, more likely, physically. I also admitted to being a part-time smoker and that I would be forced to take it up more seriously if forced to vacation with Dumb Dumb. My mother told me that life isn't always about pleasing yourself and that sometimes you have to do things for the sole benefit of another human being. I completely agreed with her, but reminded her that that was what blow jobs were for. She said that Dumb Dumb was a twenty-eight-year-old virgin who was looking at this like the vacation of a lifetime, and that I needed to have a positive attitude rather than sulk and think nasty thoughts. It was curious to me that my mother could have such wise insights, but when finding a joint in my room years earlier blurted out, "Oh this is just fantastic. So now you're smoking cigarettes?" My mother went on to say how fortunate I was to have been exposed to so much and that I should support people who were less cultured. My mom made it sound like I was a debutante who had just been accepted to the Sorbonne and that Dumb Dumb had been born on the New Jersey Turnpike. I liked this inference and decided to adopt a new attitude.

It's funny how things work. If you pretend to be excited about something you're not looking forward to, eventually you will start to believe it. Within days, I was on an absolute high talking about the adventures we would have on board our cruise ship. I didn't even blink when I heard Dumb Dumb mention that we would be sailing on the Carnival Cruise line. "Sounds great!" I said with my teeth tightly clenched; I was not going to allow myself to say anything negative about the cruise line or that maniac, Kathy Lee Gifford.

I started imagining all the ballrooms there would be for me to model my new Roberto Cavalli shoes in. I had no dress to wear with them, but I hoped to find something at Express. I pictured a wonderfully romantic episode of The Love Boat. I would be on the Lido Deck late one starry night in an evening gown looking for the Big Dipper, when a Leonardo DiCaprio look-alike would come up and take me from behind. We would be on the bow and spread our arms out to the sea, and I would yell, "You are the king of the world!"

And who knew what kind of exciting outdoor activities they had? Everyone had told me about all the amazing food on cruises; I couldn't wait to gorge myself on rack of lamb and fresh lobster. Dumb Dumb asked me if I thought they caught the fish right out of the ocean and then served it on board that night. "Probably," I responded. "It seems like the most logical thing to do."

I believed in this cruise and knew it was going to be fun. I daydreamed about all the different love connections that would be made on different floors of our ship. People in and out of cabin doors in the wee hours of the night, walking down the plush red carpets, while upstairs in the Grand Ballroom I would be closing down the dance floor with my new Leo look-alike to a covered rendition of Carly Simon's "Give Me All Night."