I know you all noticed that I was gone last Friday, because your entire Friday revolves around my Bitter Friday post. I know you all study it, dissect it, let it rattle around in your brain and try to process the meaning of the universe each time you read the Friday post. I get that you all struggled mightily trying make it through your week without a Bitter Friday post to ponder about. Trust me, if I could have done one, I would have, because I knew you suffered unimaginable pain last week.

The reason I was unable to do a post last week was because I was kidnapped. I was held captive on a luxury cruise ship by a guy named Bal, who called himself a “cruise director”, on the high seas of Pacific Ocean. Bal, who was really our cruise kidnapper, forced us to have a good time. He softened us up by forcing us to spend hours in a pool, getting raisin hands. He fattened us up by forcing us to eat in one of eight 5 star restaurants, prepared by world class chefs, and served by attentive waiters and assistant waiters. And if we weren’t fattened up enough from the 5 star meals, they also had a convenient free pizza place in the Royal Esplanade to make us eat more.

He sent some of his fellow pirates to surveille our rooms. They would sneak into our rooms whenever we left and they would vacuum and clean our room. They would even take our towels and contort them into some sort of mangled animals to send a message…that they would continue to clean our rooms. Diabolical. Why were they so obsessed with us? Their attentiveness to our rooms was downright scary. No matter how hard we tried to keep our room messy, they would clean it. It was something I would only wish upon my best friends.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Bal would constantly announce things over the loudspeaker to all the kidnappees about all the choices we had every day. He said that there were “must see” (we know what must means, Bal) things to watch on the ship, like entertaining shows by the Quantum of the Seas singers and dancers, shows like a Sonic Odyssey, Tails and Feathers and StarWater. Most people weren’t aware, but I was, that they were just hypnotizing us into releasing our money to them. We were also “encouraged” to watch movies on the big screen like Lilo and Stitch and The Grinch. Little did they know that the Grinch was a story based on the true story of my life, in which I was given no credit or royalties, which is ironic, since we were on a Royalties Caribbean ship.

If that weren’t enough, they tortured us by bringing us to two cities in Mexico, Cabo San Lucas, and Ensenada and releasing us with no supervision or warning, so we could be assaulted by local salesman trying to sell us cheap sunglasses, pictures with iguanas, and sea taxis, for the low price of almost free, which according to them were only hundreds of thousands of pesos. Then just as we thought we couldn’t take any more of the torture of salesman in Mexico, we were sent back on the ship, where we were subjected to salesman on the ship, but for much more higher than free. We were assaulted by the Salesman of the Sea and “encouraged” to buy Purses at Prada, Fedoras at Ferragamo, and Rare Diamonds at Regalia.

The torture continued for over 5 days, but the pirates of the Quantum of the Seas’ most diabolical plan was to take away the Wi-Fi, unless we paid a ransom of $40/day, and turning our cell phones into 7 ounce anchors in our pockets. They pretended that the Royal Caribbean app was an adequate replacement for the useful apps that were rendered useless by having no Wi-Fi, but they knew. They always knew. They knew that having no Wi-Fi unless you paid the kings ransom for it, would be the ultimate torture for us. And they were right.

My daughter and I did our best to pretend that we were having the time of our lives for 5 days while Bal and his minions tortured us by trying to distract us with things like bumper cars, and I-Fly experiences, but deep down, Bal knew that he was torturing us by cutting out our hearts (wi-fi). As much as you think you are above needing Wi-Fi on your phone, you know that after one day without it, you are a little uncomfortable, but you can manage. After two days, my skin was crawling without a single Instagram update. After three days, my brain is craving a hit of even one lifegiving text from Xfinity, giving me a 6 digit code to access my account. By day five, I was playing one of the several hundred liquid sort games that I’d downloaded on phone that I never intended to play and hoping for an update on the game, just so I could know that the internet still existed.

The night before Bal finally released us from our kidnapping, my daughter and I weren’t talking about the great time we had over the last 5 days. We were reminiscing about the good old days of 5 days ago, when we were in California, where the internet was flowing like the wine of Capistrano, free and plentiful like the waters of the Pacific, which ironically contained no 5G. The night before, I dreamed that I would never have Wi-Fi again, and woke up drenched in sweat.

When we woke up at 6 am on Monday, finally ported in San Pedro, California, we giddily looked at our phones as they started buzzing. Notifications. Alerts. Texts. Voicemails. We weren’t sure who was more excited, the phones or us. Bal could have thrown us in the brink of the ship and tortured us for the rest of our lives. As long as we had Wi-Fi or 5G, we could have lived on that pirate ship for the rest of our lives. More excited than being on land, we had reunited with our 5G.

As awful as the rest of that Monday was, (delays in LAX and back home with our train back), we didn’t care. We had our Wi-Fi back. To paraphrase William Wallace, Bal could take our lives, but he could never take our Wi-Freedddooom!”

Like the 80’s band Cinderella said in their power ballad, “You Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone), my daughter and I kissed the Wi-Fi on our phones when we landed on dry ground, vowing to never take Wi-Fi for granted again.

It was like a family reunion when you see relatives that you haven’t seen for 20 years. Actually, never mind. This was a positive reunion.

What I meant to say was that it was like being buried under the sea in complete darkness for years, and suddenly being pulled up by Wi-Fi, to above the water, to a sunny day. We had the feeling of being able to finally breathe after not breathing for years. Relief, release, breath, freedom, and goosebumps all at the same time.

When we got released from the Quantum of the Seas, we landed on Utopia of the Land of Wi-Fi. Now that…is my kind of vacation.

And this is the kind of Bitter Friday Giftures that you missed because of my kidnapping last Friday. Now that I’m free…you should feel free…to enjoy this weeks Bitter Friday Giftures…

I know you noticed that I was gone last week…

Well, I’m back to report that I was kidnapped…

A guy named Bal was our cruise director kidnapper…

He fattened us up by making us attend mandatory…

We were also closely guarded by other pirates…

They left us creepy towel animals…

Every morning and throughout the day…

If that wasn’t bad enough…

Where we were assaulted…

But Bal wasn’t done torturing us…

He took away…

5 days!!!!

After one day…

After three days…

By day 5 of our torture…

Once Bal released us into our native land…

We felt like we had finally broken out…

Or broke out of Con Air…

We didn’t know who was more excited…

To paraphrase William Wallace…

ARRRRGGGGGGHHHHH

Bitter Wi-Fi Reunion Ben