Welcome to Part Two of this exciting Me, You, and Meme Reviews excursion. For Part One, click here.

Back in Part One, we familiarized ourselves with that seminal big boat avoidance text, How to Avoid Huge Ships. What a text, and what a title, that is.

As an improvisor, I know specificity leads to hilarity, and that’s what Captain Trimmer leaned into, whether intentionally or not. Brenda splitting her pants at the mall is funny, you might laugh about that a bit. But you’ll never forget Brenda splitting her brand new Guess Jeans right in front of the Panda Express.

The point again, avoiding ships in shipping lanes is clear and concise. Avoiding. Huge. Ships. Is lifechanging. Whether you’ve read the book or not.

And that’s how the meme reviews came to be. That’s how we got funny, winking content like this:

As we have said time and time again here at Review Party Dot Com, these meme reviews do have value. Pure entertainment value. Laugh value. “This is why I love the internet” value.

But a review is also valuable when it tells you about the product for real, and possibly helps you decided whether or not to spend your hard-earned money on it. With that in mind, as is customary for Me, You, and Meme Reviews, we will now feature our own real AND meme reviews. Because we want to help, but we also want to have fun.

So, with book rented through interlibrary loan, fully read and photographed, let’s get to it. Posted to Goodreads, FYI.

My Meme Review
When the cold air nips, and the north wind whips, and the captain grips with fingertips calloused from his many trips, if the vessel clips through rapid rips, it dips, it tips, yet never flips, when the deckhand’s dog has got the yips, when the first mate fears he’s cashed his chips, the call escapes the captain’s lips.

Through the night, the vessel skips, headed for their distant slips, and there they’ll be if he equips How to Avoid Huge Ships.

This poem has been passed down by my people for generations, but over time we lost sight of its true meaning. We called Captain Trimmer’s book outdated, a text that couldn’t apply to our modern world. We thought the words were just a story, not a warning. How wrong we were.

After 40 days and 40 nights of rains, the world is now the domain of the huge ship.

Flooding waters destroyed the books. All that’s left is the song of Trimmer, and we cling to it as tightly as we cling to our flotsam. In this world renewed, it may be our only hope.

My Real Review
Captain Trimmer is the type of individual who would captivate your entire evening if you happened to bump into him at a party, though he’d likely be able to avoid said bump. And while most of his book won’t apply to most people glancing at its cover, the information contained inside is delivered in such a way that anyone reading even just one passage will walk away brighter with newfound knowledge, and lighter, having heard stories of life – and yes, death – on the water.

So what is there beyond “Get out of the way”? Plenty.

This book offers you new perspectives, both literal – like the different points of view between a ship’s wheelhouse and a private boat’s helm – and figurative – like what is going through a ship pilot’s head in any given moment, why they may or may not turn, how their steering control diminishes when slowing, how weather can blind their radar, and why it’s best for you to move, not them (shipping lanes, depth requirements, creating new collision courses, etc.).

Will I use any of this information? Possibly, possibly not. But it’s a quick and compelling read that will transport your mind away just as easily as any novel. Plus, it may save your life. Not bad for just 99 pages.

And there you have it. It’s a four star book, through and through. And hey, if you’d prefer to listen to those reviews as opposed to reading them, well. Why you already read to the bottom of the page. But no matter, you can hear them both on RPDC 61: A Two-Man Orchestra.