George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Good pirate, wasn’t George.
Pirate. Pirate.
George was a pirate. George wasn’t a pirate.
Good was George, George.
Very good, very George, very pirate.
But but but. But!
George. George was a pirate. George was.
George was. George wasn’t.
A pirate. Pirate was George, pirate, he was George.
A George. A good George. A very good George.
George was. George was a. George was a pirate.
George. George!
Wasn’t George a pirate? Wasn’t George a very good pirate?
George wasn’t.
George wasn’t a very good pirate.
He wasn’t good.
Author: R.
George Snaps
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
One day, he just snapped.
He climbed up to the crow’s nest and started shooting at people.
Sure, he missed them all, but he broke a lamp and knocked a handle off of the ship’s wheel.
“You stupid ass!” yelled the captain. “My mother gave me that lamp.”
George eventually ran out of ammo, and he threatened to stab anyone who came up after him.
Knowing George’s skill with a knife, they came up anyway, subdued him, and tied him to the mast until he said he was sorry.
George and Container Ships
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d raid container ships, but going from America to China, not China to America.
China sent all the valuable things Eastward, like televisions and computers and microchips.
America, on the other hand, sent recyclable garbage and raw materials Westward.
So, George ended up with a lot of garbage and raw materials.
If it were Gold or Silver, yeah, that would work out nicely.
But 100 metric tons of recovered tires or obsolete computer motherboards with trace amounts of rare earth materials, no.
At least the crews could be ransomed.
George vs the theatre
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When the community theater held tryouts for The Pirates of Penzance, George gave it a shot.
He got a callback.
But he had issues with the production.
“Pirates really aren’t gentlemanly,” said George. “And they don’t dance all that much.”
George spent ten minutes pointing out problems in Gilbert and Sullivan’s writing.
The director thanked George for his thoughts, and shouted “NEXT!”
George told his crewmates, and they raided the theater.
The director demanded that the pirates yield in Queen Victoria’s name.
They strung him up from the rafters.
Weekly Challenge #903: Fine
RICHARD
Fine
There was no way I was paying the fine.
I’d only popped into the store to grab some bread and milk, ten minutes, tops. Ten minutes – and I still got a ticket!
Where else was I supposed to park?
I decided to fight it on principal.
I reckoned it was worth a shot.
That was until I got the legal bills and had to lose two whole day’s wages for court dates, plus the cost of fuel and parking just to attend.
Nearly a grand and a half it cost me!
But, at least they let me off the fine!
TOM
Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang
It was the gold age of rhyme and blues. A refined sound that spilled out of the Black Community and cross over into mainstream American pop music. Ten million transistor radios tuned to what arguable could be called, not parent’s music. Downtown music. Not only was the sound uptown so was the presentation of the group that sang those upbeat love songs. Groups like the Chiffons dressed to the nines elegantly crooning Do-lang-do-lang-do-lang. He’s so Fine is a long way from swing low. So fine, I haven’t heard the term used in years. Guess you would say He’s so Non-binary.
SERENDIPIDY
I’m fine, really, no matter what the shrinks might say, and despite all the expert opinions.
I’m taking it all in my stride; as far as I’m concerned, it’s no big deal, even though I know it should be.
People think it’s some sort of ‘survivor syndrome’ – not the one where you feel guilty about surviving, when none of the others lived, or the weird one where you feel invincible, almost immortal.
But it’s not.
The truth is far simpler.
I managed to survive, not because the killer spared me, or missed me.
I survived because I was the killer!
LIZZIE
“No trains?”
The man sitting outside the station shrugged.
“Fine.”
10am. What now?
She could walk, but her feet were killing her after 2 hours, walking from the nearest village.
A cab perhaps? Did they even have cabs here, in the middle of nowhere?
She could wait. What if there were no trains?
Then, she saw the policeman.
“No trains?”
He shrugged.
“Fine!”
Rude people.
“Lady, I saw you crossing the road over here.”
“So?”
“The zebra crossing is over there.”
“So? There are no cars.”
“Well, here.”
“What’s this?”
“A fine, of course. You do love fines, don’t you?”
SCRIBBLING WREN
John
The first thing I notice in the room next to him is Chrysanthemums. I didn’t want flowers but forgot to say. It’s hard to think of everything. Maybe someone asked me. Maybe I’m on autopilot just nodding and telling everyone I’m fine. I’m tired of having ‘sorry for your loss’ thrown at me, then that awkward bit where we stand in silence.
I leave half way through his funeral.
Those fucking Chrysanthemums.
I feel like I can smell them from outside.
I’ve had enough. I don’t want to be alone but I need to be by myself for a bit.
NORVAL JOE
The roiling black thunderhead rushed toward them, bolts of lightning striking tall pine trees as it approached.
One of the teenagers shouted to the driver of the van, “What do we do, Clarence?”
From behind the steering wheel, he waved them toward the van. “Get inside.”
As the wind roared toward them, they left Billbert and his friends and jumped for cover inside the van.
“Not without the prisoners!” Clarence screamed at the youths.
It was too late. Billbert, Linoliamnda, and Sabrina raced into the trees.
But without Sabrina focusing on it, the storm faded away to a fine mist.
PLANET Z
Some days, she’d open a drawer and smell his clothes.
Or set the table for two.
Using his soap in the shower.
Buying the 2% milk at the store because he didn’t like the skim milk she drank.
Only having to pour it out a week later.
How long had she been doing this?
Too long.
Eventually she sold his car, sold the house, gave all his stuff to goodwill.
A new beginning, she told herself.
She pulled out her phone and played the voicemail.
“I’ll be fine,” said John.
A slide of the finger, and then tap on Delete.
George’s toothpicks
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
George had a habit of using his dagger to whittle bits of wood off of the ship’s railing as toothpicks.
Other pirates picked up this habit from George, and after a week, the whole ship looks like it had been clawed up by a dozen angry cats.
“Enough with the toothpicks!” said the captain. “Stop carving my ship to pieces!”
After that outburst, George left the ship alone.
But he tried to carve a toothpick off of Peg Leg McGinty.
McGinty caught George, and brained him with a club.
George and Old Smitty
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Old Smitty wasn’t much better, but he outranked George, and he bossed George around.
He made George do dumb or dangerous things.
Because George didn’t know any better, he’d go ahead and do it.
“That was dumb and dangerous, George,” said the captain. “Also, you did it wrong.”
“I’m just not a very good pirate,” said George.
So, the captain kicked George off the crew.
Standing on the dock, watching as his ship sailed away… and then exploded.
George figured that Old Smitty did something dumb and dangerous correctly.
George’s bully
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Calico Keith, on the other hand, was more like what you’d imagine a pirate would be.
He drank, he fought, and he did it all with swagger.
At his funeral, pirates came from all around to pay respects.
George watched the others raise their tankards in a toast.
“HAIL KEITH!”
After everyone left, George dropped his breeches and pissed on Keith’s sailcloth-wrapped corpse.
“You ugly bully,” he murmured.
One of the pirates snuck up on George and shoved him into the grave.
George growled, and planned his next murder.
George the Pirateman
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
How did he become a pirate?
Well, if George existed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he could have been like Spiderman, who was bitten by a radioactive spider.
George could have been bitten by a radioactive pirate.
(Radioactive pirates exist, right? From one of those atomic bomb tests?)
Except that would have made him PirateMan. Which sounds weird.
And unlike Peter Parker, who was a teenaged photographer, slinging webs and stopping crimes, George was a pirate, which is a criminal profession.
Even if he wasn’t very good at it.
George and pie
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was careless with the ship’s supplies, and they were always running out of whale oil for the lamps.
So, George scrounged, and he found a box of Pumpkin Spice Yankee Candles that he’d been meaning to wrap as Christmas presents.
He distributed them throughout the ship and lit the wicks.
Then, he went to sleep.
When he woke up, the whole ship reeked of pumpkins, and he had a craving for pumpkin pie.
Everyone did.
“Set a course for the Whidbey Island Pie Shop!” shouted George. “Full sail!”