If a Man named Sexy Pants invites you to dinner on a boat named Scoundrel it'll be OK and fun(ny) so say yes.

As you may have surmised, I was invited to dine aboard a boat named "Scoundrel" by a man named Sexy Pants. That is not his real, given name, but it is a well-known nickname of his, and in the conversations below, everyone calls him Sexy Pants, so it's not like I substituted "Sexy Pants" for his real name for comic effect. It's real.

So last week, my boyfriend said, "My mother said Sexy Pants invited us for dinner on his boat." Us as in his whole family, Mom, Dad, Brother, Boyfriend, and now Me because my boyfriend and I are considered a unit because we are adult-like and live together. Damn you domestic partnership! (Also note how I wasn't even phased by being invited to dinner by Sexy Pants because this is Antigua and these types of things are normal).

The biggest issue was that my boyfriend's mother warned me that I would not be able to pee the ENTIRE TIME I WAS ON THE BOAT. Sexy Pants does have a bathroom on his boat, but it would just be easier if I didn't have to worry about peeing for the evening. This would not be a problem if I didn't pee every 20 minutes! So I set up a strategic plan. We were having dinner at 5:30, so I stopped drinking any beverages at 4:00 pm to sufficiently empty my system and ensure I would not have to pee on Sexy Pants's boat.

At 5:30 pm my boyfriend and I trotted down to his parents house because Sexy Pants was going to pick us up in his dingy across from the Compton House (aka behind a closed pasta restaurant on the side of a road). To make matters worse, I almost died on the way down to meeting Sexy Pants. Antigua is a small island with winding roads and there is no need to drive over 35 mph, yet we we sped down to the harbor and plundered through potholes like we were in a German Tiger tank instead of a 12-year old Honda CRV. Somehow, we made it to our rendezvous spot without dying.

After walking down a precariously built and balanced plank (that is the only way I can describe it) that led to a floating dock, Sexy Pants pulled up in his dinghy.

*Note: That is not Sexy Pants in the picture. That is Daisy Duke in sexy pants to give you an idea of what type of pants Sexy Pants wears to have earned his nickname.*

So all five of us piled into his dinghy and he drove us out to his boat. Sexy Pants is a kind, friendly old man who is "American" and "Canadian" despite the fact that he talks like Gorbachev and has lived in South America for the past 30 years. We got to his boat, which is named Scoundrel, and it was only then that I realized how ridiculous the situation was. I mean, come on, if you are a young woman and have been asked by Sexy Pants to go on a boat named Scoundrel, would you reasonably think that was a good idea? I wouldn't, but maybe that's because I'm from New Jersey and therefore have had numerous bad experiences with both sexy pants and scoundrels.

After climbing onto Scoundrel, we all settled into the spots from which we would not move for the rest of the night. For those of you who are landlubbers and only familiar with cruise ships, there's not much room on a 38-foot sailboat for a dinner party. And we were on the deck because it would have been even more hot and crowded down below. So, we settled down and Sexy Pants took his position in the Galley where he proceeded to serve us drinks.

The drink orders were simple...two beers, one red wine, and two Caipirinhas. The Caipirinhas were highly recommended by Sexy Pants and were described as "better than Ti Punch." For those of you unfamiliar with Caribbean and Brazilian death drinks, both are generally made by crushing some lime with some sugar and then adding your death liquor of choice. In the case of Ti Punch, a popular cocktail among French Caribbean islands, the death liquor is Rhum Agricole, a French-island rum that can be used in place of paint thinner when you need to do some housework. In the case of Caipirinha, the national cocktail of Brazil, the death liquor is Cachaca. Though I am unsure of its household uses, I'm sure it could at least be used to disinfect your toilet. In any case, I was one of the fools who decided I'd brave the Caipirinha because I seemed to think getting out of the boat and back into a dinghy in 3 hours would be easier if I was full of Brazilian death liquor and I could breathe fire with the strike of a match.

Anyway, it took Sexy Pants about 30 minutes to serve us our drinks because he was so excited and chatty and was telling us about all his recent travels around the area. He was also telling us about his family and his two "ugly" granddaughters (he was joking) and his son-of-a-bitch son-in-law (I don't think he was joking there).

Then, he sprung appetizers on us: raw conch and crackers. The conch wasn't really raw, it was ceviche-style, marinated in lime and Worcestershire sauce. Still, I am an American and there is only so much raw food I can eat. No matter how good it tastes, I still get creeped out because I am eating RAW FISH! And it's not sushi! I really enjoy sushi. Instead, it's conch which is chewy and slimy and I'm averse to weird textures with my food!

We made it through our appetizer and luckily Sexy Pants was on top of things and segued right into cooking dinner. One and a half Caipirinha's later and I thought I'd be OK to make it through the night without having to pee. Sexy Pants's dinner was actually pretty tasty. He made us conch fritters with this delicious sauce and rice and a red cabbage salad that reminded me of some Slovak traditional food that my grandmother used to make. It provided a moment of comfort and distracted me from the fact that I was a boat named Scoundrel with a man named Sexy Pants. Even though I knew I was totally safe and I had four chaperons, I kept thinking if something bad happened and I had to call my Mom and start the story with, "Well, I was on Scoundrel with Sexy Pants..." that would be humiliating and she would personally call the National Guard to escort me back to the States or something.

Dinner was finished in a reasonable amount of time and we all praised Sexy Pants for his cooking and tried to devise an exit strategy because we were in a boat in the middle of a harbor and the only way back to shore was in Sexy Pants's dinghy and he had to take us. Sexy Pants, however, decided we must have dessert.

Dessert consisted of SEVEN different types of fruit/death liquor concoctions that were in various old containers: a mayonnaise jar, a cashew nut jar, an old Goya spice jar, and those were just the ones I could recognize. Though Sexy Pants seemed to have a good idea of what types of fruit he mixed with his death liquor such as plums, guava, prunes, and raisins, he was suspiciously mum on what type of alcohol was in the jars with the fruit. He mentioned sugar at one point, and about 15 minutes later lamented that no one imported Jamaican 151-proof rum to Antigua anymore, but never came clean on what exactly was in his jars. If rhum agricole and cachaca are death liquors these jars contained super-turbo-explosion-death-liquor. You didn't even need to light a match near my mouth to start a fire. A spark would have done it...the thought of a spark would have done it. After finishing my shot glass of plum(?) moonshine death, I was peer-pressured into eating a prune from the prune moonshine death jar. We all were. My boyfriend's tongue went numb. On the plus side, we now know where to go when the dentist runs out of Novocaine. On the down side, Sexy Pants tried really really hard to get us to try all SEVEN of his moonshine death concoctions. We succeeded in convincing him to let us get away with only trying three.

At this point, we tried to make our exit. Which was impossible because we were still on a boat in the middle of a harbor and I was not wearing a bathing suit and therefore refused to swim to shore myself. So after a few attempts at saying we really must be getting to shore and asking our host to give us a lift in his dinghy, Sexy Pants decided we MUST listen to music and it must be JANIS JOPLIN. Now, I like Janis Joplin just fine, but not when I've had enough death liquor to require a stomach transplant and I haven't peed in 3 hours and I'm pretty sure if I did pee I would know what having gonorrhea feels like because I'd be peeing fire-spurting death liquor and that would be awful.

Somehow, we managed to convince Sexy Pants we had to go. I think we all stood up, which was difficult on the boat with the awning over us. I don't even know how I made it into the dinghy without falling overboard into the harbor and despite all the moonshine death concoctions Sexy Pants had sampled, he managed to get us safely to shore and (presumably) get himself safely back to his own boat.

The strange thing is that Sexy Pants makes the best conch fritters in the whole fucking world. And that is why if Sexy Pants invites you to Scoundrel for dinner, you should say yes.