Assistant (to the) editor

By Melissa Tucker

A three-hour tour

Posted June 12, 2008

On Sunday, I headed to the Arkansas Queen to review the first murder mystery dinner theater ever held on the boat.

I thought the boarding started at 6:30 p.m. but I was wrong. Apparently, the Queen exited the dock at 6:30 p.m. The boat was held up for 10 minutes because of me. I drove like a bat out of hell... as they say... and felt like a complete idiot for holding everyone up.

But I would have plenty of time to contemplate the irony of the beginning of the voyage when three hours later, we were still on the water — long past our due date back on the shore.

Dinner and a show were lovely. The food was "better than Murry's" as my husband rated it.

And I agreed but then again, to be perfectly frank, ... nursing home food is better than some of the stuff at Murry's.

Anyways, after the show, we headed up to the deck for the view. Then... we heard the captain say the train bridge was having a malfunction and we'd have to wait until that was fixed to get back to shore.

I didn't fully understand this at first. I didn't realize the train bridge had to be raised for the boat to fit underneath.

We waited patiently as the time dragged by. The only thing to keep the passengers occupied was drinks from the bar. Some even said the whole thing was a conspiracy to get everyone to spend more at the bar.

While the boat faced the current and stayed in one spot, my husband and I entertained ourselves by playing hangman.

The old ladies sitting in front of us were apparently less informed than most of the other passengers.

One remarked, "I wish we could hurry up and get out of here."

Another said, "I know, we've been heading toward that buoy for half an hour."

"Honey, we're not moving," said the first one.

"Oh! We're not?"

Hilarious. Plus the keyboard player, sang songs from Gilligan's Island and changed the words to Arkansas Queen when appropriate. In true concert fashion, someone hollered at him to sing "Free Bird," but he would only do that for a $20 bill. Someone must have obliged because he launched into one of the worst versions of the song I've ever heard.

No, really.

He also played tunes like "Fulsom Prison Blues" which seemed appropriate because we were essentially stuck on this floating prison with nothing but mixed drinks to console us.

Finally, when the bridge was raised, we sailed under to the keyboard player singing "Bridge Over Trouble Water."

When we pulled into the shore, he switched to "Dock of the Bay" and had nearly the whole boat singing, "I'm finally sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away."

And we were glad to be back on dry land.