Meg, I believe, has issues. She arrived here in Bonaire a week ago with six other divers. She is a dive instructor, and from what I can gather, she is the one who set up the trip for the others.

The woman’s real name is not Meg, but I call her that in this post for two reasons:

1.      In order to maintain her privacy

2.      She looks like Meg Ryan in body frame, hair color and face.

When Meg and her crew arrived on the scene a week ago, it was with great fanfare and rejoicing…among themselves. I heard them in the parking lot the first day that they arrived. Well, actually, I heard Meg. She was the only one doing the talking. All the others just listened and nodded as she told them all what dives they were going to do that day. (This is Meg’s first trip to Bonaire. This is Mary’s 18^th. Every morning, before we decide on what dives we’re going to do, Mary checks with Rob or Gaylene in the dive shop to get their opinions before we come to our final decisions. Not Meg. She, apparently, knows everything about the island and diving in general.)

Almost immediately upon her arrival, Meg stormed into the dive shop, announced to Gaylene that “her group” was going to be making four to five dives a day, and she expected enough tanks for all of them to do that. She also said that she expected the dive shop to be open at 8 a.m. every morning so that “her group” could get an early start. Gaylene sweetly informed her that the dive shop hours are 9 – 5 daily, but she would try to get to work a little earlier for them if possible.

First of all, making four or five dives a day is not only exhausting, but it’s dangerous. Nitrogen builds up in a body with every dive, and you must take precautions to insure that the body degasses properly in between dives. There have been times when Mary and I have done three dives in one day, but those dives were well spaced out. We would do one dive in the early morning, one around noon time, and the third one would be a night dive.

Gaylene said that she, being a dive master, is required to do four or five dives in one day on occasion, but those dives are short, and, even then, at the end of the day, she is ready to collapse.

When I met with a few of the folks from Meg’s group in the parking lot one day, one of the gentlemen asked me about my diving history. I informed him, in front of the others, that I have been diving for twenty years, and that I’ve been coming to Bonaire for most of those twenty years.

Another member of the group then asked me what dive sites I recommended. When I told her about my favorite dives on the island, Meg, who was pretending not to listen, spoke up and said, “Well, our dives are all planned out. It’s time to go!”

There was one woman in Meg’s group, Alice, who was there with her husband, and she was not a very experienced diver. She is the only one who stood up to Meg. One morning, Alice and her husband were eating breakfast at poolside and Meg called down to them from her second floor balcony, shouting, “Let’s get going, folks!”

Alice sweetly informed Meg that they were not going with the group that day because the dives that Meg was planning to do were too scary for her.

Meg seemed dumbfounded, and pressed them to join the group. Alice stood her ground and patiently and politely said something like, “We’re not going. This is my vacation, and I should be doing what I want. You guys go off and have a good time. We’ll see you at dinner. Bill and I are going to plan our own dives today.”

I sat up in my balcony, next to Meg’s, and thought, Way to go, Alice!

Last night was Meg’s group’s last night in Bonaire. So they gathered around the pool in the late afternoon with drinks, and everybody at poolside, and everybody sitting out on their balconies to watch the sun set, listened to Meg pontificate on everything from Rob Reiner to The Andy Griffith Show to her life.

We were very impressed, I’m sure, that Meg was finishing up work on her Ph.D, and that her husband, Sean, was so successful in his work that he will be able to retire young in about seven or eight years. (I noticed that Sean was not with the group here in Bonaire. He’s probably at home enjoying some rare peace and quiet.)

Did you know that Rob Reiner’s first big directorial hit was Sleepless in Seattle followed by You’ve Got Mail? And here I’ve been laboring under the delusion that his breakthrough directorial debut was This Is Spinal Tap. I also thought that When Harry Met Sally pre-dated Sleepless and Mail, but what do I know?

Mwg then announced that her PhD was in Underwater Archeology. She began lamenting about what a useless degree it was. She then launched on a fishing expedition looking for compliments and assurances from “her group” people that. . . on the contrary! Underwater Archeology was an incredibly difficult field of endeavor, and Meg must be some sort of freaking genius to be writing her dissertation on the subject!
I watched in amusement from my balcony as they lined up to praise her for her good work and her brains and her stamina. One of the people there actually said to her, “Someday I’ll be able to say that I know you personally!!!!!!”

After about a half hour of this group-hug ego massaging, Meg was forced to agree with them that she was, indeed, an incredibly gifted and astounding human being.

I looked down at Bill and Alice, with whom I’ve become friends over the past week. Bill looked up at me, rolled his eyes, smiled and raised his glass to me. I did the same in return.

Underwater Archeology, huh? Sounds like the kind of degree that allows you to say “You want fries with that?” a lot.