George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When the ship encountered strong winds, George would call for full sail to get the ship to full speed.
Then, he’d drop a line down the stern and strap on his waterskis.
George skimmed along the water, laughing and doing stunts with the ship’s wake.
He did flips and twists, and the rest of the crew cheered.
“Can I have a turn?” shouted the captain.
“No!” shouted George. “Get your own rope!”
The captain cut the rope with his dagger.
“Then get your own damn boat,” said the captain.
Author: R.
George worries
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He worried a lot about things, like what others thought about him or whether he left the stove on before going to work.
“You live on a ship,” said the captain. “You don’t have a goddamned stove.”
Every time George started a sentence with “What if I forgot to…” the captain reminded him that he didn’t have a car to park in the wrong zone, or a smoke alarm to put fresh batteries in.
“Shut up, George,” said the captain.
George worried what the captain thought about him now.
George makes models
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He liked to make model pirate ships.
The problem was, his crewmates were always stealing the glue for his models and sniffing it.
By the time he had a model assembled and he was ready to glue it together, the glue tube would be empty.
He’d go back to the store for glue, but when he got back to the ship, someone had already smashed the model ship.
George switched to Legos, and he assembled them in taverns.
Beer and whiskey were far more intoxicating than the modeling glue.
George’s bad luck
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
And compared to pirate legends, such as Nikolaus Storzenbecher, he was downright pathetic.
They said that Nikolaus could down a gallon mug of beer in one gulp.
George could barely sip his way through a small cup.
And when Nikolaus was captured and scheduled for execution, he demanded that anyone he could walk past after his beheading be pardoned.
The prison warden agreed.
Nikolaus’ headless corpse stumbled past 12 men before collapsing.
George, the thirteenth man in the line, grumbled and kicked the dirt.
“Just my luck,” said George.
George and the name tags
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
There’s a lot of turnover on a pirate ship, so it’s hard to remember names.
George tried to get his shipmates to wear nametags.
The problem was, by the time the nametags were ready at the printer, most of the crew had been killed and they’d recruited new pirates.
George bought a stack of HELLO, MY NAME IS stickers and a sharpee pen.
Most pirates are illiterate, so they drew an X or a dick.
George gave up and called everyone “Smitty.”
Everyone else called George “that annoying dick.”
Weekly Challenge #899 – Split
LISA
He wore the pointiest shoes that I had ever seen; I couldn’t work out where his toes would go, and soon suspected he didn’t have any. I stared whilst scuffing the toes of my own brown buckled school shoes. I hated them. Mum wouldn’t let me have slip-ons. She’d said that I wouldn’t be able to run in them, remembering made me scuff even harder. I realised he wasn’t a normal adult when he didn’t stop me. I didn’t linger on that thought though. Just anticipated the bright red cherry on top of the Banana Split he’d promised me earlier.
RICHARD
Morgan’s Lot
“So, you two are going to split up then?”
I could practically see the glint in Morgan’s eye as he asked the question.
“Yeah. I’ve known for ages she was having an affair, but she finally admitted it and wants a divorce.”
I didn’t mention I knew exactly who she’d been seeing behind my back, or that I was fully aware Morgan was the guilty party.
I also neglected to mention her drunken rages, unbridled spending, violent outbursts over nothing, and her longstanding gambling addiction.
I figured, if he was going to take her, he could take the whole package.
SERENDIPIDY
The idea is always to split the group up.
When they’re alone and isolated, they’re vulnerable, easy targets. No challenge at all.
The tricky part is splitting the group up: People tend to band together when under attack, and there’s strength in numbers.
However, a group will also gladly welcome a distressed and terrified stranger into their care, to protect them from an unknown, and unseen aggressor.
Bad move.
Especially when that stranger is me.
And I’m the unknown, unseen aggressor.
Now I’m in your midst, you’ll scatter soon enough.
Ready for me to pick you off, at my leisure.
LIZZIE
The show is about to start.
And she laughed and laughed.
The stage was empty, but she laughed and laughed.
I just sat there, my mind filled with perplexity.
She waved her arms and laughed and laughed.
I sank in my chair. What could I do but wait for the show to start?
And I waited and waited.
That’s when I realized that she had her own stage. In her mind. Everyone owed her attention, a lot of attention. She was the show. And she thought everyone knew that.
When no one clapped, she stopped laughing. Hate. She hated everyone.
TOM
Intelligent Design
I come from a generation where getting a full banana split was a big deal. Was not ever going to happen in a home with eight kids. Hell, you were lucky to get a single scope of Neapolitan ice cream. And for the record Neapolitan managed on its own to be the worst offering of all three flavors. Back to the split. I sixth grade I won a church raffle for one of Sister Mary Joseph’s New York split. Quad scope Quad syrup Quad Cherries. A coma confection. I firmly believe banana split are proof of a loving god.
TURA
Split
———
“Split a pound note and it’s gone,” my father would complain. A penny back then would buy what a pound does today, an old penny, 240 to the pound.
You wouldn’t spend a pound note in a corner shop, you’d change it for smaller coin at the bank, and put off doing that as long as you could. A workman’s wage was ten pounds a week, you work out what ten times 240 is, fifty weeks a year.
Sure, you can buy stuff today my father never dreamed of, but you’ve less real money than he had to buy it.
NORVAL JOE
Fortunately for Billbert, Sabrina, and Linoliamanda, they were flying slowly and low to the ground when the blast from the confetti gun split them apart. They hit the street and tumbled across the asphalt with each of the youths acquiring a variety of bruises and abrasions.
With all the indignation a 13 year old could feel, Billbert stomped up to the smirking woman. “What were you thinking? Were you trying to kill us?”
She laughed. “Now that you mention it, that’s not a bad idea.”
Her humor vanished when Billbert grabbed her hand and shot straight up into the air.
PLANET Z
Mindy and Bobby grew weed down by the old railway.
They dried it out in Mindy’s attic.
Bobby weighed the weed and bagged it.
Mindy took orders on a Girl Scouts cookie sales sheet.
Never names, just the amount and locker number.
And never on credit. Only cash.
When the harvest was sold out, they slipped the baggies into the kids lockers.
The principal took his cut, and let them know when the cops were bringing dogs around or searching lockers.
Bobby and Mindy made enough to pay for college. Different colleges.
They graduated, and never saw each other again.
George and a pet
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Just as Captain Ahab had his white whale, George had his white guppy.
From the moment he saw it, he just had to have it.
No, it wasn’t as epic a hunt as Moby Dick, but guppies are fast.
George swept the net around the tank at the pet store, but never managed to catch the little fish.
“Screw this,” said George. “Just give me a mouse.”
George put his wallet in his jacket pocket and the mouse in his back pocket.
He discovered his mistake on laundry day.
George the nice
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Rumors about George spread across the Carribean.
“George is nice to women.”
“George treats captives so well, they don’t want to leave.”
“George pays retail price for things instead of looting and pillaging them.”
The Pirate Council came together to address these rumors.
“This is giving pirates a bad name,” said The Chairman. “We must do something before this catches on and ruins us all.”
But they were too late. The damage was done.
And across the world, pirates became polite and nice.
Almost as much as George was.
George Zaleski
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Some say it was a memory from his childhood that haunted him.
The Flying Zaleskis were performing under the big top, and one of them had been caught messing around with his brother’s wife.
So, his brother didn’t catch him during The Triple Backflip Leap of Doom.
Who then slipped from the grasp of his mother.
Zaleskis were flying and falling everywhere, landing in sickening thuds.
One landed on a clown, breaking his neck.
The Zaleski’s neck, not the clown’s neck.
Because that makes a world of difference, right?
George flies a flag upside-down
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was always flying the Jolly Roger upside-down.
Someone would point it out to him, and he’d grumble and bring the flag down, mess with it a bit, and run it back up the mast.
“It’s still upside-down, George,” said the captain. “Try it again.”
Once again, George would grumble and try to fly the flag right, but when he ran it back up and stepped back, it was upside-down again.
“This is why I try to lose battles,” said George. “At least the white flag is never upside-down.”