It was truly an awful sight. It was one of the Five Most Ungodly Sights Ever, right next to monkey brains, overturned eyelids, a smashed up brand new BMW M3 with Dinan aftermarket parts, and Michael Jackson's nose.

I cry just thinking about it. I'm crying right now.

Aboard the Sovereign of the Seas, one of the Royal Caribbean's luxurious cruise ships, was free food hidden in every corner. Right next to the elevator banks was a table of free cookies. Near the entrance to the outdoor deck was a free ice cream machine. In the shopping level were free potato chips.

If you could eat it, it was free. I tried to eat my cruise receipt, hoping to get the cruise for free. But I choked on the paper.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were by far the most evilest. Free nonstop food. Plates and plates of it. The first two meals were all-you-can-eat smorgasbords. Dinner was all-you-can-eat courses. It was possible, and I'm not saying I did it, but still, it was possible to order two delicious entrees followed by two or three scrumptious desserts.

Royal Caribbean measures their success in terms of inches around the waist gained by their passengers. The average is two inches, with a shocking five inches for ambitious consumers trying to maximize their dollar-to-food ratio.

There were signs on the boat saying, "Save the Whales." They ask passengers not to throw anything into the sea, for fear of killing whales. The campaign was reasonably successful. No one threw their garbage overboard. Pant buttons, however, were an issue.

Eat time a passenger increased their waist past two inches, their pant buttons popped off—and into the ocean. As we speak, there are hordes of whale carcasses littered among the Bahamas, all from our cruise. A lethal side-effect of waist-inch gain.

As the ship traveled through the Caribbean, there were weight ballasts that could be discharged to prevent the ship from sinking under the growing collective weight of its passengers. Which doesn't really make sense, because the passengers are consuming food already on the ship and there's no net weight gain, just a transfer of weight from food to passenger guts.

Hmm. That last paragraph really made no sense, which is another side-effect of the waist-inch gain: fat in the brain. There are fat molecules not only in my gut, but also in my brain right now, thusly preventing me from coherent making sentences that make sense, much less ideas that sense make.

Why is Royal Caribbean so evil? Because when God commanded Noah to create the Arc, Satan created the Royal Caribbean cruise line.

Every time I walked by a table of free cookies, I heard voices. "Eaaat usss!" they chanted. "Eaaat usss!" Obey I had to. Eat them I did. To temptation I succumbed.

I'm back from the cruise now and in recovery. The memories still haunt me. I hope I never encounter such a truly awful sight again. But I'm getting back on track. I'm jogging down the Road to Redemption, whittling away the Waist-Inch Gain of Wickedness, losing the Pounds of Evil, exercising on the Treadmills of Salvation, and trying to forget the Cookies of Temptation. Hallelujah!

And I can't wait for my next cruise, because, damn that free food was good!

. . .

Have you ever been on a cruise?