And no Gilligan, either

My sister lives on a boat -- I went out last week for my birthday. Here's what I learned...

The fun things about living on a boat:

• the gentle rocking as you're falling asleep
  
• the sounds of the birds in the morning
  
• it kind of feels exotic
  

The things you don't know until you get there:

• when you go to the bathroom, you can only use five sheets of the one-ply toilet paper per flush
  
• when you shower and you're lathering your hair, you need to turn the water off
  
• you have no yard
  
• you don't really have any privacy if you're friendly with everyone on the dock -- imagine living in a normal suburban neighborhood, and your neighbors can not only see into your house as they walk by, they might also walk right up to your house and stick their head in the window to say hi. That's what it's like to live on a boat.
  
• you can't really have any "stuff" because there's no room
  
• you can't sit up in bed because the ceiling is six inches above you