KIDNAPPED! a true story.

As some of you may have noticed I am prone to reminiscing about my past when real time events don’t provide sufficient stimulation. It is for precisely that reason that I have chosen to share with you the true story of my kidnapping. Many moons ago when I was working on a Chandris ship called The Horizon and nick- named the horizontal. I was unfortunate enough, a few days prior to the incident in question to break two bones in my foot.

Officially I slipped in the shower but there were persistent rumors at the time that I had actually slipped in a puddle of beer during a particularly energetic Irish jig. This can’t be true as I didn’t even know anything about an illegal party in the pump room that evening.

As a result of my untimely accident I was unable to join my friends on their weekly boogie night in Puerto Rico and had resigned myself to a lonely night reading in my cabin. Little did I realize that a cunning and dastardly plan was afoot or indeed that I was to play a central role in the drama waiting to unfold.

Shortly after 10pm the security guard was called away from the gangway near my cabin to help deal with an affray in another part of the ship. Several assailants then rushed into the room where I was resting on the bed in my pyjamas. I was seized and roughly bundled out through the door by 2 or 3 of these never do wells whilst another one grabbed my crutches, apparently to make it appear that I had left under my own steam.

They hurtled along the corridor, I felt like a human torpedo, and then they clattered and clanged down the metal gangplank carrying me like a ladder in a Laurel and Hardy show. I was completely disorientated by our subsequent rush through darkened alleys dimly illuminated by the glow of ancient street lamps. I would later be unable to aid the authorities in capturing my assailants as the only thing I could see was a banana yellow sheen reflecting off one of the men’s gaudy shirts.

Eventually they slowed and I was carried through a dread portal into a dark, misty, cavernous room. Colored lights flashed psychotically in the gloom and the white mist swirled everywhere, twisting sinuously around the legs of strangers glimpsed in the sinister shadows of the interior.

My captors were on the verge of revealing the purpose of their daring escapade. I was carried to the centre of the room and dumped unceremoniously on a chair fetched for that very purpose by one of the crutch carriers. Realization dawned on me and a cold chill gripped my heart at the thought of the indignity of the ordeal that I was about to endure. Yes, they were planning to handbag me!

The other crutch carrier approached taking care not to spill any of the precious liquid contained in the glass vessel which he was carrying. “Yours is a large G n’ T, isn’t it Cathy? He asked. Without further ado the drink was placed in my unresisting hand and my co-workers proceeded to dance around me in Laser’s Disco. Just as if I was some bimbo’s bloody handbag!