Valkyrie at sea By Diana the Valkyrie (c) 1998; Valkyrie@TheValkyrie.com Part 6 - Dennis the Mighty and Diana the Valkyrie Update: 07/09/1998 to valkyrie I warmed up with the dumbbells from the ship's gym; we loaded as many weights as we could on each bar, and made a pair of massive 200-pound weights. I picked one up, and did a few one-armed presses with it. Oops, I could feel my moustache slipping. Dab dab. Then I picked them both up and did a few forward lunges. Then I called for a volunteer from the audience, and a burly guy came forward, ready to show off to his friends. Linda did the talking, and she invited him to choose a weight, and then do what I did. He pointed to the left one, so I picked up the right and held it up over my head. He almost got it off the ground. But not quite. You can only use one hand when you lift a dumbbell, so you have to have a strong grip as well as be able to lift the big weight one-handed. I looked up at my weight, and asked if maybe he'd like that one instead. I made it look rather lighter than the one he was struggling with, and held it out to him. He took it, and then dropped it, and couldn't pick it up again, so I picked his up and held it in the air. He looked a bit sheepish, and Linda told him to sit down. Next we did the iron bars. Engineering had come up trumps here, great long straps of steel, about four feet long, an inch or so wide, and maybe a quarter of an inch thick, and not too heavy to lift. We passed them round the audience, let them feel the weight and thickness, and Linda suggested they try to bend them. Then she called for a couple of volunteers from the audience, but not a single hand went up. Then she offered to kiss each volunteer as a reward for being brave, and she chose a couple of burly blokes from the dozens that offered. I showed them how, but somehow they still couldn't do it. I showed them the over-the-thigh bend, the round-the-neck bend and the between-the- legs-and-round-the-back, which is the easiest of all. But by the time I'd finished showing them how, I'd used up all the bars, and they still hadn't bent a single one. So, Linda told them to sit on the row of chairs, and wait for the next part. The next part was where I lifted both the dumbbells up into the air, one in each hand. These were the same weights that the men couldn't lift even one of. I held them over my head, then bent forward to lower them to the ground, and then, my hat fell off and my hair fell forward. It worked perfectly. I stood up, pulled off the beard and moustache, and the audience gasped. Well, more like a moan really. And then I took off the jacket and ripped off the trousers, and stood there in my best white silk evening gown. Linda coaxed three more volunteers from the audience, and brought on the bag of six inch nails that we'd persuaded out of the ship's carpenter, on the promise that we'd bring them back (which we did, and I hadn't said they'd still be straight). And I showed them how to roll them in newspaper to give you a better grip, plus a bit of leverage, and then I showed them the grip to use, and then you go like this ... but somehow, the steel nails did what I wanted, but stayed stubbornly straight for the men. In the end, I had to help them out, although I noticed that one of them had managed to get his nail slightly off straight, and I congratulated him on that, and told him that hardly anyone ever did. And I took that one and bend it double, and straightened it, back and forth until it broke, and gave him both pieces for a keepsake. And then Linda called for more volunteers, and there was a noticeable reluctance, so she did what I told her and challenged them, men always accept a challenge, I think it's hard-wired in, and it's the best way to get a man to do something really dumb. Only it wasn't like I was going to hurt them or anything, just bruise their egos a little. So we got four men up on stage, and Linda brought on a shopping trolley full of all the phone books we could cadge around the ship. And then she explained the challenge; we'd all tear them in half as fast as we could, and if the four of them would up with more torn in half than I did, then they'd win. Well, of course, that was the funniest part of the act. Those four guys huffing and puffing, trying one, failing, trying another, while I just dipped into the trolley again and again and worked my way through them. And then, just to complete things, I took the phone books they were still trying to tear and did those too. Final score; Blokes zero, Valkyrie lots and lots. So then we got those four to sit in the row of chairs. Then Linda asked each of them his weight, and wrote it up on a big board. She listed all twelve, and someone added it up and it came to over 2600 pounds. And then I went and stood in the middle, put the rope over my shoulders, and straightened my legs so they were off the ground They clutched the arms of the chairs like they were 100 feet off the ground instead of inches, and I slowly turned round, so the row of men made a complete circle before I put them down again. Difficult. But very, very impressive, I mean you know how heavy one guy is, and you can see this Valkyrie in her best evening dress carrying a dozen of them. The audience went wild, cheering and clapping, and when I put the chaps down, they did too. Linda kissed me and told me "You're a peach" and I told her I'd enjoyed every minute of it, and not to wait up for me. I went up to the captain's cabin, and spent the night with Stevie, who judging from the fact that he didn't mention it, evidently didn't know what I'd just been up to. The next day we were docked at Casablanca, and Linda and I got together over breakfast (Stevie was still snoring from the rigours of the previous night, and I didn't even ask Linda who she'd tupped) and we were going to go round Casablanca together. Because when I don't have to compete with her, Linda is rather fun. So we got into the ship's tender and I discovered queasiness again, but the trip to shore was mercifully short, and I got out and felt better at once. We walked down to the town centre. People kept turning to stare at Linda, who was (of course) wearing her six inch heels (I, more sensibly, wore my Reeboks) which made her almost two feet taller than me, or to put it another way, I didn't even come up to her armpits. And as I've said before, I am *not* short, I'm medium sized. Then I realised that, as we were in an Arab country, maybe the shorts that Linda was wearing weren't quite appropriate. She liked wearing short shorts because they accentuated the length of her legs, which went up and up and up - you've probably heard the expression "legs up to her armpits"? Well, as you go vertically upwards, Linda was still leg when I was already shoulder. We went to Rick's Bar. What a disappointment. They'd put movie posters up on the walls, and they had a piano, and some guy playing "As time goes by" and other hits from the film, and doing Bogey imitations, and I suppose it was the best they could do, and I'm not sure what I'd expected, but at the bottom line, it was just another bar with some movie posters. "Shopping" said Linda. "Born to shop, shop until we drop" I agreed. So we went to the souk, and Linda bought a leather shoulder bag, and I bought a pair of backless leather sandals like the locals wore, and then Linda got arrested. This guy in a uniform went up to her and said something incomprehensible in Arabic, and grabbed her arm. She pulled away from him, of course, and he pulled out his gun, and I said "Linda, I think we'd better go with him before someone shoves that gun down his throat, because it's rarely a good plan to assault a policemen, the others get really upset about it." So we followed him down to the local cop shop, and they gave Linda a blanket to put round her legs, and I told her to go along with it, and she said "I'm an American, and I have the right to ... " and I interrupted her and said "You have that right in America, Linda, we're not in Kansas any more." So they locked us up.