George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
His crewmates wrapped him in white rags, and laid his body on a wooden plank.
Then, after a prayer, they tilted the plank and his body slid into the ocean.
“Amen,” they said.
The cold water woke George, and he realized that he’d been dumped overboard.
“Well, that’s nothing new,” he tried to say.
But he couldn’t. Because his mouth was full of water.
And he’d been bound and gagged.
“I hate being a heavy sleeper,” thought George, as he sank deeper and deeper into the water and unconsciousness.
George gets a bath
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Nor was he being given a bath by the cannibal who’d found him washed ashore on the beach.
“This water’s too hot,” complained George, splashing around. “Oh, and I’d like soap and a washcloth.”
Instead, the cannibal dropped in chopped vegetables and herbs.
“I’d rather wait until I’m finished with my bath before I eat,” said George.
Somehow, the fire under the pot ignited the cannibal’s grass skirt, and he ran off screaming.
George got out of the pot, reached in for a vegetable, and sat down to eat.
George’s Giving Spirit
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Instead of plundering and looting, he tended to give things away.
“You didn’t give away the cannons again, did you?” said the captain.
“That would be stupid,” said George.
“Or the cannonballs?” said the captain. “We kinda need those to use in the cannons.”
“Do you think I’m some sort of idiot?” said George.
“Yes,” said the captain. “What about the gunpowder?”
“Oh, come on,” said George. “I’m not doing that again.”
The captain ran down a list of supplies, not noticing that they were adrift without an anchor.
George’s Special Map
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The rest of the crew never could figure out why the captain kept George around.
“Maybe he has a treasure map tattooed on his head?” said Rummy Bill.
“Well, then wouldn’t the captain just scalp George and get rid of the rest?” said Old Lefty.
After a few drinks, they decided to shave George’s head.
Surprisingly, George allowed them to do it, and when they were done, they found nothing.
George was relieved they didn’t ask for him to drop his pants to reveal the map on his ass.
George at the Ritz
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Winds fill your sails, but they can also blow you off course.
Or, in George’s case, into the rocks.
George crawled from the wreckage, shouldered his duffel bag, and walked ashore.
“Where am I?” George asked the couple laying on the beach.
“Fort Lauderdale,” they said. “The hotel is right over there.”
A uniformed man held the door and welcomed George to the Ritz-Carlton.
“How long will you be staying?” asked the concierge.
“Oh, as long as it takes to empty your safe into my bag,” said George, grinning.
Weekly Challenge #905 – PICK TWO Why should I?, Rhymes with…, Grasp, Heinz 57, Loop, Unleashed
RICHARD
How many?
Call me pedantic, but all I ask is for some sort of consistency in life.
It’s not much to ask, and sometimes we do in fact get it right – take traffic lights, for example: We all know, wherever we are in the world, that red means ‘stop’ and green means ‘go’. Can you imagine the mayhem if everyone adopted their own colour scheme?
It’s a simple concept to grasp.
Nevertheless, we have Heinz 57, which I’m told, refers to 57 varieties…
So, that’s 40 varieties of WD40, then?
What about 7Up?
And don’t get me started on 100 word stories!
LIZZIE
Why should I worry about that?
Because it rhymes with grasp.
What?
Heinz 57 on a loop, unleashed.
What are you talking about?
I can’t see. These glasses…
Why should I worry about that?
Because it rhymes with clasp and a clasp is always useful.
What?
Heinz 57 on a loop.
What are you talking about?
I can not hear. The voices are too loud.
Why should I worry about them?
Because they rhyme with gasp.
What?!
Heinz 57 on a…
Are we doing this 54 more times?
Silence.
They are gone.
Did I forget to take my pills again?
SERENDIPIDY
I exercise my dogs exercise in the park unleashed.
The signs tell me I should keep them on a leash, but why should I?
After all, it’s not as if they’re doing any harm. It’s always at the dead of night, and only during a full moon; they’re hardly likely to run into anyone innocently going about their business in the park at that time of night, are they?
Besides, it’s cruel to chain them up, they should enjoy their freedom in those brief moments.
And just imagine, waking up as humans next day, wearing collars… People might get the wrong idea!
NORVAL JOE
Linoliamanda’s father was shouting at the police officer, “Why should I have to wait twenty-four hours to report my daughter missing? It’s not like she’s an unleashed dog that slipped through the fence. Can’t you grasp the severity of the situation? This is a child who didn’t come home from school yesterday.”
Before the cop could respond, Linoliamanda was running across the loop in the driveway. “Daddy! Don’t worry. I’m home.”
The look of relief on his face was qickly wiped away. “You’ve got some explaining to do, young lady. Can you think of a word that ryhmes with ‘grounded’?”
TOM
In the Name of the Catsup
“Unleashed the power of the red, we are the children of Heinz 57” intone the Priest of the Yellow Kitchen. Upon the altar of chrome rested the holy bottle. The paper wrapper around the jar had fade over the centuries, but the words could still be read out during the feast of Captain-Crunch. Each of the devotees held high their plastic spoons. Why catsup and breakfast food got connected has been lost to the mists of time. It’s not as bad an idea as you may think because this generation misidentified strawberries for tomatoes. The French’s mustard, that’s another story.
PLANET Z
There were three movie theaters in the suburb where I grew up.
The multiplex in the indoor mall.
The discount screen in the rundown strip mall.
And, across the county line, a drive-in theatre.
It was across the county line because the suburb banned alcohol sales.
The drive-in sold a lot of beer. And, because it showed X and triple-X films, a lot of tickets.
Ohio’s pretty flat, but there’s a few hills and ravines here and there.
And the hill above the theatre got plenty of people with binoculars and telescopes.
I was there too, selling popcorn and sodas.
George the Dummy
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
“Of course, you’re not, you loser,” said Enrique, George’s ventriloquist dummy. “You’re just a big dummy.”
“Shut up,” said George.
“You’re an even bigger dummy than me,” said the puppet.
“Shut the hell up,” shouted George, throwing Enrique into his footlocker.
George started hearing the voices a few years ago, so in order to make it look natural, he got the dummy and pretended it was a ventriloquist act.
Except that nobody else heard the voices.
Still, the rest of the crew gave the creepy George a wide berth.
George corn
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He wasn’t cost-conscious either.
When most pirates tended to pay a dollar or so for corn, George paid a dollar and a half.
“More than a buck an ear?” growled his captain. “That’s against The Pirate Code, that be!”
“Well, it’s organic,” said George. “And pesticide free, non-GMO.”
George also wore a white filter mask when he went into battle.
“To conceal your identity, right?” said the captain. “You don’t have a bandana?”
“Well, I do,” said George. “But that awful gunpowder smoke is such hell on my allergies.”
George’s Telescope
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
“LAND HO!” shouted George.
“That’s just dirt on the telescope’s lens,” grumbled the captain. He took George’s telescope, wiped the lens, and handed it back.
“Thank you,” said George, and he looked through it again.
“THE FLYING DUTCHMAN!” he shouted. “ALL HANDS AT BATTLE STA-”
“Gimme that!” said the captain, and he took the telescope away.
He looked at the lens.
“It’s a smudge I left when I wiped the lens the first time.”
That’s when the ship hit the rocks.
“I told you there was land,” said George.
George at the beach
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He preferred to spend his day laying on a towel at the beach instead of looting and treasurehunting.
The captain was quite clear with George that beach days were rewards for successful raids, not just something to do on a whim.
Deliberately running the ship aground on a nice sandy beach was a no-no.
And falling overboard to wash ashore on one was certainly out of the question.
George watched the calendar, waiting for that special day…
“Beach Day!” he shouted, leaping overboard.
And landing headfirst on the dock.