Humor

I Was The Maintenance Man Who Survived The Titanic

View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com

View at Medium.com
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Imagine this:

One minute you’re hating your life, stuffing coal into boilers like your chef-sister stuffs meat into peppers, and then…

BAM!

Some smart guy who went to college hit an iceberg and split the boiler room wide open like a birthday pinata.

Oh, you can’t imagine it?

Probably because you were upstairs nose deep in caviar, not giving a rat’s ass about the maintenance man.

I survived, and this is my story.

It began with a shriek.

Twisted metal groaned as gallons of water poured in faster than foodies to a French-named food truck.

And immediately, the unsinkable ship dared to do what we thought it never could.

S̵i̵n̵k̵. Become the obstacle course from Hell.

Do you remember how the Titanic had those airtight doors that just, umm, became a living nightmare for the boiler room staff?

Yeah?

That was the start of my night.

A ticking time bomb of engineering slowly released and nearly trapped the entire boiler room staff faster than an annoying neighbor can trap you in conversation.

At that moment, I knew I had to act fast.

I slithered away under the door (and reminded myself I needed to get in shape).

Foolishly, I thought the worse was over.

Wrong.

As I worked my way up the ship, much to my Chagrin, guess what I found.

Some pencil-dick officer locked the fucking gates. Leaving me to escape one watery tomb only to waltz into another.

But was I going to let someone dressed like a Ken doll stop me?

No. I decided to do what I had been doing for the past 10 minutes.

Take matters into my own calloused hands.

Me and four of the drunkest guys you’ll ever meet ripped a bench from the walls, and like the big, bad wolf, we blew the gate down.

Freedom at last… so we thought.

We rush upstairs.

Bloodied, hungry, and entirely too sober, I make it to the deck. What do I see?

An orchestra!

While half the ship is clawing for a way out, I saw a giant cheeseball of rich assholes l̵i̵s̵t̵e̵n̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵t̵o̵ ̵m̵u̵s̵i̵c̵.

Correction. Listening to live music! In suits nonetheless.

I suppose, even in tragedy, the rich need entertained.

I wanted to take the cello, make a life raft out of it, and hold on to Hawaii, but I relented.

Like many of you, I, too, found the orchestra to be enchanting.

So I pressed on.

The deck of the Titanic was as crazy as you’d expect it to be.

People pushing, pining, and planning to escape with anything that floats.

It was chaos and it taught me to expect the unexpected.

Most unexpected were these two kids, Jack and Rose getting into a love story in the middle of a damn tragedy, pissing everyone off.

Some-real-James-Cameron-type-shit.

I figured there were only three moves:

Wait in line for a life raft, try to create your own, or get end of the world drunk.

I chose the latter. With the night I had, it’s safe to say I earned it.

Time marches on.

Me and the guy in the white suit absolutely hit the bottle, like it owed us old money.

We got:

Hammered drunk.

Pickled drunk.

Sinking-ship drunk.

And good thing we did, because when that ship rose 100 feet in the air, it didn’t bother us much; it felt more like a circus ride.

We had survived up to this point, and that’s what mattered.

Into The Water

I don’t remember what happened next, but I was fortunate enough to be rescued by a lifeboat.

Extra fortunate considering how they treated my coworkers.

But what I liked the most was that no one on the life raft had a suit.

I suppose amid a tragedy, you ought to appreciate the little things.

As the years go on, I urge you to think of the maintenance men of the Titanic.

Toss the old dogs a coin if you ever see them. Buy em’ a drink.

They might not be the main character, but they are, certainly a character.

That we can agree on.

From the guy with too much time on his hands-

I’ve always enjoyed the movie Titanic. Who didn’t? It’s a fascinating yet tragic story that seems to stir the imagination. Yet during that movie, the boiler room scene always stuck out to me. Because frankly, that would suck. This was written that scene in mind. I do not wish to offend, nor is that my intention. Any loss, then and now is a tragedy.  And apparently, I felt that was important enough to clarify.

Anyways, please like, comment, share and tell me what you think! Do you like the Titanic?

37 thoughts on “I Was The Maintenance Man Who Survived The Titanic”

  3. The Titanic sinking was a major tragedy. It was the folly of man that made them think the ship was unsinkable. Also the poorer people were discriminated. A lot of them didn’t survive. I like your recollection of the story, it was very detailed and vivid.

    Reply

  6. This is so interesting! I love titanic stuff. My husband’s grandmother (Elenor Johnson Shuman) was a titanic survivor. Wonderful descriptions!

    Reply

      1. I haven’t. She passed away before my husband and I got married but my husband was very close to her up until she died. She was an amazing lady and she was on the boat when they were trying to raise pieces of it. Pretty incredible. You can look her up on YouTube and listen to her speak about what she remembers.

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