Cruising

©  2010  Rose George

I recently met a man who told me this story, which I will re-tell in honour of all the young ship’s ratings who have to do the dirtiest jobs. Because even the best on-board wastewater treatment systems need maintenance and cleaning. “I started my career by working on a cruise ship. I was the lowest ranked recruit so my job was to clean the sewage tank. I’d do it early in the morning before people woke up because there wasn’t much coming into the tank then so that was the best time to do it. One morning I was doing it as usual. I had to get inside the tank, and then balance on a bar that ran across. I didn’t have a mask or a hood. At one point my foot slipped into the sewage and I thought, “sh*t,” and then a while after that I heard a noise. I looked at my watch and thought “sh*t” again, because I hadn’t noticed it was 6.30am. Suddenly there was a rushing sound and load of sewage poured through the pipe above my head. It went down my neck and all over me. I had to go back to my cabin like that and get cleaned. That evening as part of my job I had to entertain passengers. So there I was in my dress whites, with my arm around a pretty young woman when she said, ‘god, what’s that smell?’ And I knew. It was my fingernails. You can’t get rid of the smell. I was mortified.”