You’re On At 7!

You’re On At 7!
 
I don’t think I am one who had a lot of dreams. I am happy to let life take its natural path and put any obstacles it fancies in front of me.
 
I never wanted to be a professional footballer. I harboured no ambition to go into politics and even in my chosen profession I was most happy when I was considered to be The Opening Act but that was years ago. Now I’m a headliner and I don’t like it up here. Good job I didn’t crave television and with it fame.
 
As far as I can remember the only ambition I had was to join a ship one day via the pilot boat and a rope ladder.
 
I achieved this dream when I joined one of the lovely Holland America Line vessels.
 
I was due to board in the port of Dubrovnik and everything was going smoothly. My first flight took off on time and landed, get this, early, a minute or so. I was happy as my connection although not tight was always going to be close. Oh yes, I had a connecting flight because there aren’t direct flights between London and Dubrovnik, not for comedians.
 
I needn’t have worried about the time I had between flights because as soon as I found flight two on the departure board it was delayed. Before my very eyes in went from ‘on time’ to ‘delayed’. This gave me three hours to kill but as everyone who reads these must know killing time is something of a speciality of mine.  Three hours, pah, that was never going to be a challenge.
 
It was only as I boarded flight number two that I realised I had another issue. Making the ship. Landing in less than two hours meant I had under an hour to get my luggage, find my driver and reach the port!
 
With my luggage in hand I walked through the automatic doors and spotted my name on an iPad, happily acknowledge the driver and we walked towards his car. His mobile rang and he stopped, answered his phone and started talking, just talking, no more walking. I looked at him and he indicated he’d be just a minute. I waited seven before he hung up and carried on the journey, around thirty yards, to his car.
 
“That has to be annoying that your phone is still tied to a base when you receive a call and simultaneously need to be somewhere…” I mentioned with a hint of sarcasm.
 
“No, no, this is a mobile phone…” he replied with too much sincerity.
 
We raced to the port and got to the entrance, only to be told that this wasn’t the right gate and I had to go elsewhere. I had ended the journey and paid. Now I needed this guy to carry on the ride for maybe three hundred meters. He did, happily, after telling me how much a second journey would cost.
 
Turning around the end of the building we saw the ropes were up and the ship was meters away. I couldn’t blame his seven minute phone call. It was gone six o’clock by this time and all aboard would have been around five thirty.
 
So I was standing by the dock of the bay with my luggage beside me when the Port Agent approached me.
 
“Paul Adams?”
 
I prove this with the use of my passport, he radios someone and within minutes the pilot boat was along side. The pilot was on the ship helping the Captain navigate a way out of the port and his boat was due to pick him up so,
 
“Would you mind jumping on and joining via a rope ladder?”
 
Mind? No way, I have been waiting for this moment for years!
 
“OK.” I tell him hiding any form of excitement. Luggage and comedian onboard the pilot boat we quickly caught up with the ship and minutes later I was watching my case being raised up tied to a rope as I was issued a life jacket and brief instructions on how to handle a rope ladder.
 
“Hold on tight!” I am told as if that idea had not already crossed my mind.
 
It was harder than I thought to control a moving rope ladder so my ascent wasn’t quick but I got there, I grabbed the out stretched wrists of two security guys. Never take the hand. I was taught this years ago: if a hand loses grip that’s it. If you grab a wrists and a grip is lost, there is still one hand on one wrist.
 
Aboard. 
 
With the applause from the hundreds of watching guests leaning over the railings still ringing in my ears I was dizzy with the rush of adrenaline . I proved my identity again and as I prepared to walk off to the front desk a voice uttered
 
“You’re on at seven!”
 
It was twenty past six!
 
I was backstage five minutes before the show and listened as the Cruise Director telling the audience of my plight and walked on to more applause. I stood behind the microphone and left it in its stand. Pausing until there was complete silence…
 
“I never wanted to be one of those comedians who started his set with the phrase ‘The trouble I had getting here tonight…’”