Category: Talk Like A Pirate Day

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
In the middle of one battle, he put down his cutlass, started a fire, and began cooking some beans.
“What the hell are you doing?” said the captain. “Do you want to get shot?”
“Come on,” said George. “I’m making enough to share.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said the captain.
“But I’m putting lots of ketchup in it this time,” said George. “And those cut-up hot dogs you like.”
After the battle, the surviving pirates sat down to a homestyle campfire dinner.
The captain asked for more ketchup.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was kinda scruffy and goofy-looking. He resembled a Muppet version of a pirate.
Not one of those traditional hand-puppet Muppets. You know, the ones with the puppeteer crouched under the stage, or one puppeteer working the hand and mouth while a second puppeteer works the other hand.
Or that stupid prawn, the one that uses rods and sticks to manipulate.
He was more of a big ol scruffy freestanding Muppet, like the Sweetums monster or Big Bird or Snuffleupagus.
The rest of the crew, they looked like pirates.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
There were other pirates on the ship who weren’t very good, but they deflected any criticism by blaming George’s incompetence.
As any good mediator knows, deflecting and sidetracking doesn’t solve the core problem, and George didn’t handle the stress well.
Which made George even more of a target for blame.
After a while, things got really bad.
George hid in his bunk.
Of course, things weren’t getting any better.
Eventually, the captain recognized what was going on.
“Get back to work,” said the captain. “I need someone to blame!”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
There was a pirate who was even worse than George, though.
He called everyone “Bro” and tried to give out fist-bumps to everyone.
An even bigger landlubber than George, who talked big but couldn’t hold his own.
Everyone called him a phony and a poser.
Except for George. He just let the guy bluster.
“Don’t tell me how to load a musket!” he growled. “I’ve been shooting muskets for years!”
The musket exploded, killing the rookie.
George rifled through his pockets and threw his body overboard.
“See ya, Bro.”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The captain always left George behind when he put together landing parties for raids.
“Watch the ship,” he said. “And don’t touch anything.”
George stood on the deck and did nothing.
He was good at doing nothing.
When the captain and the landing party returned from their raids, bringing back treasure, they were surprised that nothing awful had happened in their absence.
“Nothing’s on fire,” said the captain. “The ship hasn’t sunk. Everything’s fine.”
Nothing bad ever happened when George stayed behind.
George became the ship’s good luck charm.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
This didn’t matter to graverobbers. They just wanted pirate corpses that they could sell to museums, where they were stuffed and displayed in historically accurate dioramas.
Schoolkids would walk past the scenes, going “YARRRRRR!” and swaggering like Johnny Depp in those movies.
Then they’d beg their parents to buy them plastic swords and eyepatches and cheap paper pirate hats from the gift shop.
Or they’d steal something from the dioramas. Sometimes, they’d knock over a figure.
Raising the next generation of thieves and plunderers.
George would be so proud.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
His ship struck a small boat, a boat on which the leader of Tomainia had been fishing.
George bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead man sinking into the water.
So much so, he was grabbed by the special secret police and rushed to the country’s capital.
Dressed in a military uniform, addressing the crowded stadium, George stood there and froze.
What would he say? What would he tell the assembled masses?
What deep wisdom could he share to make everything better for everyone?
George passed out and collapsed.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The other pirates didn’t respect George.
When he put his lunch in the ship’s refrigerator, someone would always steal it.
“I marked it with my name, guys!” yelled George. “I used the marker that’s clipped to the fridge!”
Someone stole the marker, too.
George began to carry his lunch around with him as he worked.
Sometimes, he’d drop it during a battle or a raid, and someone would step on it.
“You did that on purpose!” George would whine, and stab the offender.
It became his whiny, annoying battlecry.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Most pirates had a girl in every port.
Sometimes more than one, depending on the money.
George wasn’t like that.
He had someone special back home
George would send letters from every port he visited.
When he arrived back home, they’d read them together under a tree they’d planted when they were young.
Then, one year, George returned home, but his letters were waiting for him, undelivered.
George put them under the tree they’d planted together, where she’d been buried.
His crewmates found his body, hanging from the tree.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he felt depressed, he ate.
“What is this?” said George, opening a Wonka Bar and seeing a Golden Ticket.
“It says you’ll get a tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory,” said the captain. “And you’ll get all the chocolate you could ever want.”
They set sail for the chocolate factory, but bad weather prevented George from getting there on time for the tour or the chocolate.
Which made him even more depressed.
He opened another Wonka Bar. Another Golden Ticket.
He crumpled it up and threw it overboard.