The mop

I’ll never again complain about cleaning my apartment. I’ll smile and do a little dance even, a little boogie. The standard for cleanliness in a vessel like this is high since the cargo is brand new cars most of the time. For me that means mopping. A hella lot of mopping. All day long. My apartment is 35 square meters. This ship has 60.000 square meters of cargo deck and we mop most of it. It’s the equivalent of cleaning my place 1714 times. And it’s not like the dirt on my floors either. At home I just use water and add some sweet lemony fresh floor cleaner goodness, swing the mop a bit and BAM, it’s sparkle city! But here the shit sticks! You gotta work it. And use motherfuckin mean chemicals. But I am not alone down there in the holds. There are 4 of us swinging mops.

We passed the equator this morning and are now back on the upper side of the planet. It still feels good to be upright again. Since this is my first crossing there will most likely be a baptism ceremony this weekend with a little humiliation and lots of laughs. One of the ABs have been commenting my haircut all week. He looks strange when he says it too. The eyes, they’re empty somehow. I don’t know what it means but I’m sure I will have lots to write about next week.

Next stop is Japan, Yokohama to be exact. Yokohama is right next to Kawasaki, which is more than just a motorcycle apparently! Who woulda thunk it? And Kawasaki, in turn, is right next to Tokyo. There will be lots of Japanese people there I’m sure.
Papa-san will come onboard then, the local duty free salesman. That’s not his name, by the way, that’s just what the guys call him. Because he is Japanese and, for it all to add up, someone’s father. At least we hope he will come onboard. Because of the…eh…incident. A haggling situation got out of hands when one of the ABs wanted to buy something for practically nothing and he would have nothing of it. Papa-san left the ship swearing never to return. We’ll see. I need to buy a watch. And a ninja sword obviously.