He's Embarking

*Note: My senior brother, Trenton, had to have three adults write him a page of advice about life after high school. In his wisdom, he asked me to be one of those adults. This letter will be turned in to his teacher. 

Dear Elissa Gator,
I am graduating from High School. As my sister, and advice columnist extraordinaire, what advice do you have to give me as I embark on this exciting time of my life? –TrennyWennyMenny

Brother,
You’re embarking? I had no idea you were leaving on a ship. Don’t expect that I’ll be there to see you off to sea. Hopefully this ship has a college on it. Hopefully you were accepted to the ship’s college, so you don’t have to be bound to KP duty. Hopefully they have oranges so you don’t get scurvy.

I have never been on a ship for a long period of time, so I can’t tell you what the best motion sickness medicine is to take. I’d call your local pharmacist and explain your situation. I do know that there will be a captain, and you need to obey all of his orders. If you don’t want to obey his orders, you and the rest of the crew need to start a mutiny and either put the captain in irons, or make him walk the plank. I’d suggest making him walk the plank, because it’d be fun to watch.

There will be very long days at sea without any wind. Your ship will be stuck in the middle of the ocean and you’ll most likely get cabin fever. Which is weird, because cabins are usually in the mountains, but I suppose you go crazy from lack of wind and think you’re in the mountains; hence why it’s called cabin fever. When going through cabin fever, make sure to hang your food in tall trees, lest the bears get it and you end up starving. The best way to starve is when you’re the most lucid, and cabin fever doesn’t rank high on the scale of sanity.

To pass time, you’ll need to make friends with others on the ship, especially the cook, because he’ll most likely turn out to be a pirate that is searching for treasure on an island ruled by a pig princess. Try not to upset the pig, as she packs a powerful round house kick that even Chuck Norris would be proud of. If you stick to doing your homework that gets assigned to you by the ship college, you shouldn’t have time to upset the pig. Moral of this paragraph: make friends with a frog.

If at any time it seems that your ship is sailing to world’s end or heading to Davy Jones’ locker, don’t freak out. This is natural nautical nothingness and will be resolved in sequel voyages. If you do freak out, call yourself Peter Pan and pretend you can fly. Others will avoid you for fear of contracting PeterPanitis, a whimsical disease only cured by believing in fairies. When pretending to fly, only pretend at safe heights, because the key word here is “pretending.”

There will be stormy nights where one of your crew mates has a statistical chance of getting himself thrown overboard. I know that because I read it on Wikipedia under “statistical chances of getting oneself thrown overboard during a stormy night on a ship.” So I guess technically you have a statistical chance of getting thrown overboard. I’d try to avoid the statistics by not being on the boat. Statistics for being thrown overboard are fairly low for people who are never on boats (although there have been some freak accidents, but don’t let that worry you).

Last of all, if you see a giant crocodile who sounds like he’s swallowed a giant clock, check your wrist and make sure he hasn’t swallowed your watch. Watches are hard to come by at sea.

Well, my dear little brother, I’m excited to hear of your adventures on the ocean blue, which Columbus sailed in 1492. You're welcome.