Category: Talk Like A Pirate Day

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Still, the network wanted George to star in their reality show.
Their first idea was to follow George around, but whatever equipment survived the shipwrecks was stolen and fenced by his crewmates.
The producers changed the format to teams of contestants performing pirate tasks, and George acting as the host.
Frustrated with sponsorship and product placement, George tore down the Jolly Roger flag with the McDonalds logo in the middle.
“I’ll be in my trailer,” he growled.
George didn’t have a trailer. He just wandered around the backlot, growling.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was always coming up with get-rich-quick schemes.
Lately, he’d been getting into beekeeping.
“Farmers in California pay a fortune to get their crops pollinated,” said George, putting on his beekeeper’s mesh and lighting his handheld smoker.
The ship’s deck was swarming with bees, crawling on and flying around the dozens of hives George had built.
“We can also sell the honey they make,” said George.
The rest of the crew, covered from head to toe with bee sting welts, hated the idea, and they pitched the hives overboard.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d done some questionable things, so the captain ordered that George wear a body-mounted camera to record George’s misbehavior.
The results were horrifying.
George deliberately aiming his cannon at the water to avoid hitting a ship.
George giving candy to a baby instead of taunting the baby with it.
George putting money in a church’s poorbox.
“Not even a single chortle or act of indecency!” bellowed the captain. “You’re suspended!”
George was demoted to desk duty.
There was a candy dish on his desk.
Every baby got a piece.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
You know how there’s the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital?
They keep the old Hollywood actor and actress types there.
Well, there was also an old pirate rest home.
And George ended up there.
“But I’m only twenty-three!” yelled George.
The nurses had orders to keep George sedated.
He shuffled around in a hospital gown, his ass hanging out.
Pushing along a walker with wheels.
He spent a lot of time watching the television.
Not really knowing what was going on, not aware of anything, really.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
While other pirates looted towns for provisions and ammunition, George would return with several plastic bags full of pet goldfish.
“Aren’t they pretty?” he’d beam proudly, and then run back into the pet store for a fish tank.
Of course, he needed pebbles. And plants. And an aerator.
A treasure chest with a lid that flapped every time it released a bubble.
By the time he rolled the shopping cart back to the ship, his crewmates were drunk, and out of live goldfish to challenge each other to swallow.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
On a scale from one to ten, when asked how good of a pirate George is, most pirates would ask if zero is an option.
When you tell pirates that the lowest number on the scale is one, so zero isn’t available as an option, they get very angry, and will draw their cutlass and threaten to cut your throat.
George, on the other hand, would rate himself an eleven.
Once again don’t correct him on the numbers. He might draw his sword and drop it on your foot.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He had a good attitude, though.
When he saw people, he’d say “Happy Tuesday!” or “Happy Thursday, it’s almost Friday!”
And not in a sarcastic way, either. He was genuinely happy that it was Tuesday or Thursday.
And when it was Friday, man was he happy.
Not that it meant anything. Because being a pirate is a seven-days-a-week job.
There are no weekends off for pirates.
But it gave George something to say and be happy about.
Even if the truth was that everyone was miserable, frustrated, and exhausted.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
After a long day of piracy, he’d change into his pajamas, make a cup of herbal tea, and read for a while.
Sometimes, the other pirates would steal his clothes while he slept, and George would have to go out in his pajamas.
Usually, he’d go shopping for new clothes, but sometimes he was woken up by a fight.
He fought well in them.
So well, other pirates began to wear pajamas while going into battle.
Not having pockets make it hard to carry ammunition for their flintlocks, though.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He didn’t really make a name for himself as a pirate.
As opposed to the pirate who ripped the heart out of a Spaniard and ate it.
“But what was his name?” asked the captain.
George tried to think of it. “I can’t remember. But he ate some guy’s heart, so…”
“But do you remember his name?”
“No.”
Later, George realized that he didn’t know the captain’s name, either.
George didn’t sleep that night. He stayed up, worried that the captain would rip out his heart and eat it.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He lay on his therapist’s couch, crying and rambling about all his problems.
Then, he realized that he’d looted the couch from his therapist’s office, and he was on the deck of his ship, rambling to the rain and the winds.
George shrugged. It wasn’t any less helpful that when he’d cried and rambled to his therapist.
He’d gotten pissed off at the waste of time and stolen the couch out of spite.
“And how does that make you feel?” George imagined the therapist saying.
“Good,” said George, smiling.