When a giant cargo ship got stuck in the Suez Canal last week, I did what any red-blooded land mammal would do in this type of situation. I dropped everything, canceled all my plans, called out sick from work, and planted myself in front of a three-monitor set up to ensure that I would not miss a single riveting moment of a big-ass boat trying to three-point turn its way out of a canal that was literally built to ease the passage of big-ass boats from one point to another. Finally, my watch has ended. According to NBC, after several false alarms, Ever Given has been cleared from the Canal thanks to the efforts of over a dozen tugboats and some claw truck thingies moving sand around. I don’t know what those are called because I only care about the big boat.
While it is a relief that the shipping world can get back to normal—and so can we land people—I will greatly miss the drama, the intrigue, and the excitement that was the Ever Given debacle. What I will miss most is staying up late at night staring at my ceiling recalling the famous words of famed navigator and Bravolebrity Captain Sandy, who once told a young employee during a reunion show that she was “navigating the Suez Canal while you were still in the birth canal.” Fucking iconic.
Even though Ever Given is chugging along on her way to unload her cargo, there is still much to look forward to in the boating world. A year from now, Tom Hanks will be starring in a film as the captain of one of the tugboats that pulled Ever Given out of the canal. Next week several pornos will be available reenacting this auspicious moment in human history and naturally, Hulu and Netflix will have competing documentaries about the history of this one ship and this one canal and how on one fated day, they would disrupt the lives of millions. I can see it now: the first post-covid post-canal Halloween will be nothing but people dressed as sexy cargo ships and realistic-looking canals.