Ahira's Hangar

One of my coworkers told me that her 72 year old grandmother just got back from a cruise where she had been an adult escort for some late teens/early twenties family members.

While on the cruise one night her grandmother was given a date rape drug.

The grandmother woke up in the morning in her cabin, naked above the waist, with no clue as to how she got there. Or how her shirt and bra came off.

She was still fully dressed below the waist, and all of her money and jewelry and the purse were all intact, thankfully. And no one was with her in the cabin!

But seriously - what is the world coming to when a 72 year old grandmother is given a date rape drug on a major cruise line on her vacation?

Well, the world is a crazy place, and believe me, there are worse things that can happen. As for this particular instance, I don't think the details as given are enough to make us inescapably conclude that it has to be the case, although it is possible.

--A

Yeah, pretty crazy story. Someone's strange idea of a practical joke, I suppose. Glad the grandmother wasn't assaulted.

I have to say, I'm not that surprised by this kind of thing. A news report from not that long ago looked into sexual harassment of passengers on cruise ships, and discovered that it happens more often than the cruise companies want to admit. And a lot of cases of harassment or assault go unreported or very little can be done about them, because, apparently, once a ship is at sea in international waters, it's on its own -- it's no longer under the jurisdiction of any one country's laws, therefore it's difficult for people to get their case heard once they're ashore. They're stuck in bureaucratic limbo.

That sounds unbelievable, but that's what I've heard.

Yes, my coworker said that the cruise line actually warned all of the passengers at the beginning of the cruise that date rape drugs were a continuing problem!

Then her grandmother got a drink at a ship bar, sitting in between two stranger older male passengers, started feeling really funny, and the last thing she could remember was someone yelling to get this lady a chair! She doesn't look good! And the next thing she knew she was waking up the next day in her cabin, shirtless.

They all hope that the person yelling was a crew member, and that he or she took the grandmother safely back to her cabin, where she took off her own shirt.

Apparently the date rape drugs are used for theft as well as sexual assault.