Italian Cruise Ship Follie

I think we've all had this dream before>>You're one of the most celebrated Cruise Ship Captains the industry has known while Life and Job couldn't be any better, until, you report to work one day and take approximately 4,000 passengers on another routine yet beautiful Cruise near Giglio--off the coast of Tuscany but this time things don't go as plan, you hit a rock and the ship tips over and starts sinking, so you-the captain-do the most heroic thing any righteous human being could do, you jump ship and make it back to the mainland before doing something silly like dieing in the line of duty

Okay, maybe you've never had that dream but that exact same scenario just happened in real life. Early early morning on Jan. 15th 2012, an Italian Luxury Cruise Liner cap-sized and thousands of passengers lives were suddenly in danger; low & behold who was one of the men that made it off the ship unscathed? No! You're wrong! The answer I was looking for was "Who is El Capitano?"
Francesco Schettino, 52, who till this day denies any wrong doing, and his crew were row-boating back towards the mainland, while there were still a good 100 passengers trapped on the ship. I guess Schettino didn't read the fine print in the captain contract he signed; its general common knowledge that a Captain is always last to leave a sinking ship, unless...you are a GOP candidate for the 2012 Presidential race

There are audio recordings of the Captain's boss telling him (who is not on the ship but is monitoring the action) to get back on the ship even though Schettino is off the ship and headed to safety with his crew mates. All the recorded dialogue was spoken in Italian, obviously, but I could tell from the tone (and the immense amount of screaming and yelling) that Schettino's boss was giving him the busines, verbally assaulting him and trying to get the captain to finish his assigned duties
BOSS: "WHAT THE FUCK ARE U DOING? GET BACK ON THAT SHIP AND HELP THOSE PASSENGERS!!!
CAPTAIN: "Hey, I understand where you coming from, I feel your pain BOSS, I did everything I could before I got off the ship, I made 2 announcements over the intercom "hurry up and gather your things and get off the ship-pretty please" I event told them to follow me but nobody showed up at the rowboat, so what am I to do?
BOSS: U ARE SUPPOSE TO WAIT AND MAKE SURE EVERYBODY IS OFF THE DAMN SHIP, EVERY MAN-WOMAN AND CHILD
CAPTAIN: Come on Dawg, lets be serious for a minute, I can't get all 4,000 people off that ship, I'm just keeping it real, I can barely get 40 people to 'friend' me on Facebook....anyway, me and the boys are already at the mainland, we're at this bar called...I'm trying to see what the name of this place is...oh here it is...the Blue Oyster, and trust me we got everything under control, hold up again boss, let me get a Heineken, Red Bull and a Irish Car Bomb, okay, cool, I'm back...hello?...hello...."

I guess signing a cruise-captain contract is like signing a rent-a-center furniture contract, if you don't read all the fine print and ask the proper questions before putting your John Hancock on it you will find yourself stuck and no where to hide..."For the low low price of $50, plus $2,000 in late payment penalty fees, you just bought your-fine-self a cat-piss stained Ottoman Chair, a Non Flat-Screen TV with no remote control and a made-in china Afghan rug with several cigarette burn holes in it"

My heart says I would have stayed on the Cruise Ship and helped out as many people as I could but my brain would have over-rided that and said "Hey buddy, a new episode of Breaking Bad is coming on tonite so we need to jump-ship and get home a.s.a.p."

p.s.
In the most recent news coming from this incident, the Captain has told the court authorities that he 'tripped' and fell into the emergency life boat and couldn't get out to go back and help the remaining passengers, here is his exact quote:
"I was helping some passengers put the life boat to sea. At a certain point the mechanism for lowering it, blocked. We had to force it. Suddenly the system unblocked itself and I tripped and I found myself inside the life boat with a number of passengers." Once in the lifeboat that was lowered into the sea, Schettino insisted to the court that it was "Impossible to go back onboard"
>>No need to punch this statement up with any jokes, the funny kind of writes itself!