Those nosy neighbors.......

View from the stern today - Le Marin, Martinique

Kirstin and I skew towards the younger end of cruisers, probably 10 years younger on average. If you throw in the fact that we are "all-in" in cruiser parlance (meaning we do this virtually full time) and we have a very nice boat.........actually a yacht by length.........and it raises some questions with the neighbors.

"So tell me how you swing this?"

"Are you guys trust fund people?"

"Did you invent Bitcoin or something?"

These questions usually intrude while we're at a cruiser bar on shore - we're pretty careful about who we invite aboard L'ORIENT. Anyway, our boat card (pictured below) just adds mystery to the situation, as we're the only cruisers we've seen who don't include a last name or any identifying information at all.

Being HUGE fans of comedy, this situation is ready made for some Tom and Kirstin fun. When we get one of these prying, nosy questions and we're both in the mood, we spring the "fake job" script on these unsuspecting butt-inskies. You see, not only were Kirstin and I in sales (i.e. professional bull-shitters), but we were actually a very successful sales team at our company back in the day. Truth is, we can't resist reliving some "greatest moments in sales history" times, so we let it rip........thus, the fake job routine.

Nosy Cruiser- "So, how did you guys manage this situation so young ?"
T&K- "We don't like to talk about it" (this is the hook.......you have to throw chum in the water)
Nosy Cruiser- "C'mon, really........tell me"
T&K- "Well, if you insist. We're Nazi hunters".
Nosy Cruiser- "What ? There are still Nazis around ?"
T&K- "Of course not, you idiot. But there are a lot of old ladies in retirement communities who don't know that. We call them and say "We think we've found one in St. Barths.......we need $40,000 to go there to nab him"............a few days later............"Shoot, just missed him. He's in Martinique now......need another $25,000".
Nosy Cruiser- "That's terrible.........you should be ashamed"
T&K- "Nonsense- it stirs up their blood; they love it."

Then the pregnant pause while we see how long it takes our nosy cruiser to figure out we're kidding. Half the time, we have to tell them that explicitly.........certainly a comment on the intellect of the company we keep.

This game became so much fun that we needed a second fake job, which we created last year. It goes something like this:

Nosy Cruiser- "So, how did you guys manage this situation so young ?"
T&K- "We don't like to talk about it" (this is the hook.......again,  chum in the water)
Nosy Cruiser- "C'mon, really........tell me"
T&K- "Well, if you insist. We're the co-founders of Ashes to Oceans, Inc. If your loved one wants their ashes scattered at sea, we provide that service. It's got a 99.6 percent profit margin."
Nosy Cruiser- "Wow, that's nice. But how do you juice up the profits like that.......I mean boats, fuel, overhead...........seems like it could be a capital intensive business".
T&K- "Yeah, at first it was. But now, we just have one video clip of ashes being sprinkled at sea. We send that clip to everyone. When the ashes are mailed to us, they go right into the dumpster out back. We haven't been out on the water in 5 years.......don't even own a boat anymore. This is like printing money, dude."
Nosy Cruiser- "That's awful.........you guys are the worst people I've ever met".
T&K- "Then you haven't heard about those Nazi hunters..........."