The Maldives Survival Kit

Shopping for Valentine's Day always a bitch. You want something that conveys your overwhelming gratitude for how your other half puts up with your mood swings, your delight in the joy they give you, how much you love it when they make you laugh, and how crazy in love with them you are. Somehow a box of 40 Bunny Suicide Postcards, no matter how much fun, just doesn't convey that.

And speaking of gifts, this was what the Maldives Survival Kit contained:



Clockwise from top:

Squishy neck pillow. Brilliant move, since I view the pillows on board the boat with extreme suspicion and refuse to touch them in case something crawls up my arm. This paranoia was well-justified when we found out that the previous charter of Germans drank 20 cans of beer daily, fished like demons and didn't bathe for a week. Jesus wept. However, the squishy pillow came laced with an oddly familiar odour. I sniffed at it dubiously, then asked accusatorily, "Where did you get the pillow? It smells like....perfume." It reminded me of grannies and vanity tops, for some reason. I was hoping like hell The Boy hadn't nicked it from his mother. The Boy looked at me knowingly. "Are you asking whether some tart used it before I gave it to you?" (There was an incident once when he offered me something belonging to the ex. They were sanitary pads. I did not react favorably.) It was apparently given to him and stored with some pot pourri for ages. No wonder. It didn't come with me on the trip.

White face towel, so I could have a separate one from my main towel, which inevitably becomes horrifically grubby by the end of the trip.

Vanilla candle from IKEA. I am utterly addicted to those things. On our first (and very likely last) trip to the new IKEA, we discovered to our horror that they didn't have the Tindra vanilla candles any more, so when he saw this, he gleefully bought it for me, not realizing that I had run off to old IKEA with my dad and bought three of them in a fit of greed. But this didn't come with me either, since I figured that an unshielded candle in the bowels of a boat made out of wood and varnish might not be the best idea.

My favorite item - the Peegu of Illumination, a torch shaped like a pig, which an either run off batteries or off power generated from a pump handle at the side. Light shoots out from its nostrils. It is awesome. Came with a little carrying case and clip so I could carry it with me.

Cucumber facial masks, individually packed eyedrops and V05 hot oil treatment, because your skin suffers like nothing on earth during the trip.

All this while The Boy was pulling 12-24 hour days right up til our trip. Cool, yes? Unfortunately, ups the ante for Valentines, and I'm skint. Help!

Edit: How much do I hate the new Blogger? Fucking thing refuses to publish this post. Why the hell was I forced to change to the new Blogger? *mutters* corporate dictatorship *mutters*