OH, CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN...

I think the funniest line I heard all week was "I tripped and fell into the rescue boat."

That's right up there with one of my other favorite quotes uttered by a man defending himself after being accused of stabbing a woman: "I didn't kill her, she fell into the knife."

Of course, both examples involved tragic deaths (as opposed, you know, to the non-tragic deaths), which are nothing to joke about.

Nevertheless, when the Italian Captain Shettino (I pronounce it with a slight variation) of the doomed cruise ship Costa Concordia invented the implausible "tripping" explanation for his cowardice, what could you do but smirk? That guy was tripping all right, but not with his feet.

Reading about this shmuck and his ship made me think of my dear old Dad.

Back in the day, he was an accountant during the week, but on summer weekends he was the proud captain of a 17-and-a-half-foot boat named The Wishbone. Dad was usually a jolly fellow, but once he stepped foot on that ocean vehicle, he was a changed man, all business and full of commands. We kids liked to have a fun day on the water, but Captain Daddy Bones knew that a boat - no matter how puny - was a precarious craft once you got out on the high seas and you had to treat it soberly and with respect. We could laugh and joke all we wanted, but he remained stern at the stern and kept a sharp eye on the water, on other boaters and on us. They called it pleasure boating, but Tom Bones wasn't about to let any tomfoolery affect his ship or his passengers.

Once when my sister and I were out on the boat with my Dad, I fell while waterskiing and hit my face on those 1970-eras skis-that-were-so-gigantic-they-could-have- been-used-as-surfboards. Blood gushed out of my cheek as I flopped around in the water. When my Dad circled the boat around to retrieve me, he looked as if he was going to pass out and frantically pulled me into the safety of the Wishbone.

I learned from Daddy Bones that a ship's captain is in unequivocally in charge and if that craft and its passengers go down, he would go down with them.

So Captain Suave Italian guy who allegedly was trying to impress a lady friend on the coast by gliding the cruise ship close to shore, all I can say to you is what Gomer Pyle used to proclaim on his television every week: "For shame, for shame, for shame." 

Shame on you for leaving people on the ship as it tilted into the sea. Shame on you for letting your crew and your entertainers and your waitstaff - people without fancy titles and dashing uniforms - save frantic passengers who were scrambling to survive.

And shame on you for thinking we'd buy that "I slipped and just happened to fall in the path of a rescue boat" crap.

Next to "honest, she just fell into my knife" that's the biggest fish story of the 21st century...

A STUDY IN FRUSTRATION

There's nothing like waking up early on a Monday morning to learn from the radio news of a possible link between breast cancer and paraben, a substance found in deodorant, make-up and other cosmetic products.

Naturally, I didn't listen to the word "possible," I just stumbled to the bathroom, grabbed my deodorant and frantically tried to read its ingredients through blinking Monday-morning eyes. The print was so agonizingly tiny it could have stated "packed with a mysterious conglomeration of extremely dangerous chemicals - for God sake, use sparingly" and I would have been unable to read a word of it.

A few cups of tea later and armed with my no-line bifocals, I could finally decipher the miniscule wording on my deodorant and was relieved to find it did not contain paraben (although a few of the other contents were disturbing - who wants to put "hydrogenated castor oil" under their arm?).

Other items, like my moisturizer, powder and foundation (hey, it takes a village...) didn't even list the elements that work so hard to make me presentable.   

Still worried, I Googled the paraben news and found that it was based on a very small study involving only 40 British women with breast cancer who had paraben in their tissue samples. Seven of the women never even used deodorant, which led the scientists to consider that the paraben must have come from something other than deodorant.

By the way, the American Cancer Society does not find a connection between deodorants and breast cancer. They say other studies found parabens in lotions, makeup and sunscreen products (uh, oh, damned if you do; damned if you don't), but that more research and much larger studies are needed to determine if it is a risk factor for breast cancer.

Digesting of all this seems like an episode of Dr. Oz, where your head bursts from trying to absorb a cornucopia of statistics, warnings and diagrams, and where you learn that - in essence - absolutely everything you eat, own or love will eventually be the death of you.

This latest research news probably sent worrywarts like me scrambling to their medicine cabinets to determine if they were doomed, worried that they would be relegated to a lifetime of looking like a hum-drum "Glamour makeover "before," forced to make their own contraband powder from crushed mango skins.

Bottom line, if you or someone you love has been affected by breast cancer - and I think that includes everyone - you know that finding the root causes of this disease is a must.

But shouldn't the medical folks make sure that they have all of the facts before making all of us petrified to look and smell our best?

Because, although I'm cutting down on chocolate (kinda) and walking more (sorta), I'm telling ya, breaking up with Estee Lauder or my old pal Lady Speed Stick may just put me over the edge...

SPLISH, SPLASH, IT WAS TAKIN' a BATH...

So the New Year started off with a bang -or more like a "plop" - as I lifted the toilet lid and my cell phone unexpectedly slipped from my pocket into the bowl. (Yes, if you must know, it was clean water, so stop saying ewwwww!)

The phone was only in the drink for literally one second, but apparently that's all it takes to fry its innards. After swiftly retrieving it, I tried all of the Urban Legend remedies (removing the battery; sucking out the moisture with a hair dryer; putting it in a bag of rice to absorb any microfibers of water; praying to St. Thomas Electrus, the patron of essential technological devices) with no success and then reluctantly trudged off to the nearest Sprint retailer (which, of course, was far, far away). 

The Sprint store gave off the vibe of a medical office, with a receptionist who briskly took my information and ordered me to take a seat. I sat silently, along with all the other idiots who somehow destroyed their cell phones, shifting nervously in cheap chairs and looking blankly at a television on the wall. As people's names were called, they were guided to a "private" nook, where a technician softly broke the news: "We did everything in our power, but I'm afraid your phone is gone, along with all your vital personal information that you have no other record of; videos of your children's birth; and text messages from your ex that you definitely needed for your next court appearance - I am so sorry."

Everyone in the waiting area pretended not to hear the prognosis and stealthily avoided eye contact. You could practically feel the solemnity in the room - it was like a run-down ER, without the pharmaceuticals.   

As I waited my turn, I contemplated whether to admit how my phone met its fate. Should I fib when the technician asked me why it suddenly stopped working ("No, doctor, I only drink sherry on snow days and national holidays") or fess up to my mishap ("Yes, nurse, I sprained my ankle because my nephew bet that I couldn't do a skateboard wheelie on a cement sidewalk")?

When I broke down and told the Sprint guy the truth, he dismantled my phone and sighed as if he were reviewing a CT scan of a nail lodged in my cerebral cortex.

Ultimately, my outcome was grim: My beloved phone was a goner and I needed to purchase another phone.

As I selected an iPhone to be just like all the cool kids, I feared that bidding adieu to my beloved Blackberry - gee, wasn't it only yesterday when I proudly took that device home? - would cause me volumes of grief. I was right. It was a struggle to master simple tasks, like how to retrieve emails or select a ringer that didn't sound like the Sistine Chapel on speed (my apologies for ruining your shavasana, fellow yoga classmates).

Ultimately, I must also learn how to shield my powerful new phone from any unfortunate human error mishaps.

I sure as hell hope there's an App for that.

One Never Knows, Do One?

So while I was heading to the store the other evening, I ran into a neighbor who was walking his three dogs. He told me sad news, that the 15-year-old pooch had a fatal health condition and probably wouldn't be around for long. And then, while we were commiserating, he said something that really stuck with me:"This dog changed my life."

The cynic in me automatically thought, "really, how's that possible?"

But after he told me the story, I understood. It seems that, pre-dog, he was a "man about town" who barely came home to sleep. But one day he found a forlorn puppy wandering on a nearby street, took pity on him, drove the him to the pound, and went on his way. About a week later, he called the shelter to make sure the dog had been adopted, only to learn that he had not and, in fact, was scheduled to be put to sleep that very day. He asked them to hold up the execution, rushed over to the facility and adopted the dog, whom he named "Larry." Without planning to, he suddenly became a canine "Dad," a duty that called for him to become less of a gadabout and more of a responsible caretaker. In his new role, he walked his rambunctious mutt to a nearby dog park every day, which helped him to become friendly with neighbors whom he had barely even noticed before, including an old college buddy who had lived on his same block for eight years. One dog led to lots of new friends (and eventually to two additional dogs) and certainly a new way of life for him.

In that same "fate" note, I met my hubby one weekend when some friends extended a last-minute invitation to visit them at the seashore. We had a great day at the beach and a fun dinner party at their house, and I assumed that we were done for the night. But then someone suggested that we head to a club and before I knew it, I was chatting with a stranger and the rest is romantic history. (Except, of course, for the days when we momentarily want to strangle each other...)

Now, I'm not saying that the evening I met my beloved was the only time I ever hung out at a nightclub. Nor am I saying that every stray dog wandering on the street is magically going to revolutionize your life - ya have to kiss a lot of frogs and pick off a bunch of fleas first - but you just never know.

The point is that we can plan our lives to our little heart's content, but those blueprints are probably going to get discombobulated anyway.

So this holiday season, if you plan to have a lovely, relaxing, joyous celebration with your family, don't flip your mistletoe if it doesn't exactly turn out that way.

Smile, send good vibes out to loyal old Larry, have yourself a Merry little Christmas and I'll talk with you in 2012.

U R GONNA B SORRY...

Most of the people whizzing past me and Sammy the Dog had the normal look of attentive drivers - head up, eyes ahead - but one guy sported the all too familiar head-slanted-down-awkwardly, eyes-not-on-the-road stance of today's texters.

But he obviously stayed on task for one reason and one reason only: He was a distracted driver AND a VIP - a Very Important Putz.

Very Important Putzes think that they cannot go five minutes without letting the world know their thoughts, words and precise whereabouts.

If you're a walker, you can spot a texting driver immediately as they bob their heads rapidly up and down: text; obligatory glance at road; text; damn road again; oooppps! kid walking to school, watch it, sonny boy!; text; road AGAIN; yellow light, hit it, mister; ooooppps!, bicyclist; rinse and repeat. 

But this guy was hard core, reading an obviously fascinating text, road or no road. Sammy and I were perplexed and fascinated, so we kept watching him:

a) Because we need a little excitement on our walk, frankly; and

b) Because we couldn't believe how long this moron could commandeer a moving vehicle down a main city street without actually LOOKING at said street. Does this mean that legally blind people can now drive a car, too? I used to know a blind guy who loved automobiles and would have killed to be able to drive, so maybe this whole "you don't really need to look where you're going" trend is promising news! 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently released a survey showing that about half of American drivers between 21 and 24 confess that they have texted from the driver's seat. Interestingly enough, the interviewees didn't consider their actions dangerous, although they did think it was unwise for other drivers to text while behind the wheel.Why? Because only they - and not the other lowlifes - are Very Important Putzes.

Driving home the other night on a downtown street that was clogged with rush hour activity, the car in front of me had to constantly honk at the driver in front of him to move forward when the light turned green. I'm no NASA engineer nor a soothsayer, but my guess is that the snail-paced driver was repeatedly texting during the lull between light changes, thus making a slow commute even more painstaking and wince-inducing.

But raise your hand if you have ever glanced at your phone to read a text while sitting at a red light.

See? That's a lot of fingernails and I'll admit that mine is among them.

I don't know why we do it - we're not the Secretary of State, we're not keeping an entire medical team waiting while we rush to perform neurosurgery, and we will not perish without reading our pal's reply to our latest witty text.

So let's resolve to keep our corneas on the road and avoid being Very Important Putzes.

Trust me, some other VIPs (Very Important Pedestrians) will be forever grateful.