For the past couple of months, I've been trying to find the right words to describe how I feel.
"I just feel sluggish," I'd reply when my friends would ask what was wrong.
"What do you mean?" they'd enquire further and I would throw out words like blocked, clogged, unmotivated.
"I feel like I have no sense of momentum. I'm not moving forward. I can see where I need to go but I just can't get there? Like there's something in the way? And the thing that's in the way might be me?"
Then over the weekend, I finally found the right words.
"I feel like the big f*cking boat stuck in the Suez Canal," I said.
"I feel like somewhere along the way I made a wrong turn, or I over-corrected, or I just made a big bloody mistake and now I've blocked the biggest trade channel in the world and countries are rationing their fuel and everyone's watching me, but I still can't be bothered to move?
"Like why aren't I moving? This is really embarrassing for me but I'm still just sitting here?
"The whole world is watching me. There's memes. A silly little excavator has attempted to dislodge my fat arse from the muddy banks of the world's busiest canal and still I sit here, watching Netflix and eating too many Easter eggs.
"Everything just feels too hard, you know what I mean?"
My friends nodded in agreement. Suddenly they understood. And they soon realised they too are the Ever Given.
We're all just big boats stuck in a tiny canal.
There's never been a better metaphor for life in 2020/2021.
If you're yet to discover the giant boat stuck in the tiny canal and compare it to your own miserable life, let me walk you through the story.
How did the boat get stuck in the Suez Canal?
So, a massive container ship called the Ever Given has been stuck in Egypt's Suez Canal since last Tuesday.
The 400 metre-long, 200,000-tonne vessel became wedged across the canal amid high winds and a dust storm, however it's unclear how it became so... diagonal. Like why is it pointing one way when it clearly needs to be pointing the other way?
The Japanese owner of the ship has since apologised for the massive boo-boo and has admitted that removing the big, stuck ship has proven to be more difficult than they first envisioned.
It's a world first, you see. No one else has ever bogged a massive ship across the entire width of a shipping channel and there's no handbook for this.
Meanwhile, 150 other big, cargo-carrying ships are just sitting there, waiting for this one to move its big red arse.
Which brings us to...
Why couldn't they "unstuck" the ship?
It seems they tried very hard to remove the ship but the machinery they have on hand to remove the ship is very small and the ship is, well, quite large.
Late on March 27, 11 tugboats managed to shift the Ever Given approximately 100 feet or two degrees, theTimesreports
Then a tiny excavator had a little dig around it which was fun for those of us playing along at home, but didn't really do much to budge the bastard.
Which brings us to...
The glorious memes.
As the world has come together to help dislodge the big ship, most of us have offered assistance with the only resource we have at our disposal... memes... glorious memes.
Good news for today: whatever happens, at least you're not the guy who got his boat stuck in the suez canal and broke maritime shipping
— The Higgs Boatswain (@jephjacques)
What is happing in #SuezCanal today explained. #Egypt pic.twitter.com/T06bFDGQ7q
— Zaina Erhaim (@ZainaErhaim)
— Deeba Shadnia (@deebashadnia)
— Jamie Jones (@JamieDMJ)
There’s a man living in a fishing shack in Greece. Locals know him as a friendly but pathetic drunk. He’s haunted by flashbacks of the day a once-in-a-century storm grounded his supertanker in the Straits of Malacca. And now, we need him to come back for one last job.
— Tom Gara (@tomgara)
He won’t do it for the sake of the shipping industry - they’re dead to him after Malacca. But maybe, just maybe, if he proves himself, he’ll get to see his boy again
— Tom Gara (@tomgara)
— Tanushree Rao (@tanushrao)
Yeah sex is good but have you ever got your boat stuck in the Suez Canal and blocked 10% of the world’s trade?
— Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. 💸 (@ParikPatelCFA)
Breaking: Ryan Murphy has cast Evan Peters as the Suez Canal boat pic.twitter.com/hclumGE3PY
— Minister for Scooby Snacks (@BuffySummersTD)
sorry I blocked the suez canal with my big ass. sorry that was me. I'm trying to fix it but I'm stuck. sorry again to all of Egypt
— Poirot Fan Account (@mechapoetic)
I genuinely cannot get enough of the suez canal memes they're so fucking funny to me pic.twitter.com/RlwPD3GXt3
— Hours (@0600Hours)
loudly referring to every situation as 'some real Suez Canal shit' regardless of context
— Deirdre (@figgled)
Taking a break from AH’s clownery. Here is a meme of the container ship blocking the Suez Canal 😂 pic.twitter.com/8E2YMKxnpR
— Mariam (@mimasdiaries)
Favourite Suez Canal meme so far pic.twitter.com/cY53NxeECQ
— Lily Bailey (@LilyBaileyUK)
Today’s Comic: We are all, in our own little way, that ship. pic.twitter.com/GVDjLxzErX
— Chaz Hutton (@chazhutton)
This picture from the Taiwan/Suez Canal news is such a good meme material I just had to do it pic.twitter.com/KTBokDaUs3
— Ꮶ. (@surelyabotlah)
So far, the best meme on #SuezBLOCKED #Suez #Evergreen #EVERGIVEN #Friends pic.twitter.com/iWLCTYtm72
— Sahil ⚡️💸 (@sahilNV)
Suez memes. Go. pic.twitter.com/35NxD4fyD9
— Evergreen Intel (@vcdgf555)
BREAKING NEWS...
Just after this story was originally published THERE WAS MOVEMENT AT THE STATION.
The boat became a little bit less... stuck.
And over the last 24 hours, the big stuck boat has become increasingly less stuck.
It's apparently completely floated now and will soon recommence its journey down the canal and to... freedom?
The boat:
Us:
In a startling turn of events, as soon as the boat was unstuck "put it back" and "add another boat" started trending on Twitter.
the boat made it and so can you
— Twitter (@Twitter)
THERE WAS SOMETHING DEEPLY COMFORTING ABOUT THE BOAT BEING STUCK AND I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF THEY COULD PUT IT BACK
— NOT A WOLF (@SICKOFWOLVES)
I love how the ship is unstuck and everyone is like PUT IT BACK pic.twitter.com/z3o0Ao3lln
— ✨ (@carries_town)
PUT IT BACK AND ADD ANOTHER SHIP! pic.twitter.com/t0pLFQWe1L
— Joshua Seth (@joshuaseth)
twitter: put it back suez canal crew: huh twitter: pic.twitter.com/qOhLctRxqf
— Indy 🐧 (@IndecisiveJones)
What a time to be alive and physically and/or metaphorically stuck in a canal.
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