Category: My stories

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Instead of looting and pillaging, he liked to order things with his Amazon Prime account.
The problem was that the ship was constantly moving from port to port, looting and pillaging.
By the time a package would arrive for George, they’d be off to the next port to loot and pillage.
George tried to set up a dropbox, but when the ship arrived at that port, the pirates looted and pillaged the business that had the dropbox.
George was furious. “That’s the wool scarf I ordered! Hand it over!”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Still, he was a good observer, and he wrote up a ship operations manual.
He sent the manual to the rest of the crew for technical review.
The crew marked up his manual with comments such as:
“Aye, there should be more YAR! here.”
“Nary a SCURVY DOG in sight!”
“Yer grammar and spelling be ghastly perfect! Shame upon ye!”
George got irritated. “This was supposed to be a review for technical accuracy, not a spelling, grammar, and style guide review!”
The crew threw George and his manual overboard.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
What he was good at was seeing opportunities.
After United Airlines made headlines for beating up and dragging off passengers, George convinced the captain that they should get into the travel business.
It didn’t take long for the ship to fill with passengers, happily participating in an immersive, authentic pirate voyage experience.
It also didn’t take long for the passengers to get seasick, scurvy, and weary of the length of the voyage.
“If you think this is bad,” said the captain, “you should see the poor landlubbers in Economy.”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The Peter Principle states that individuals rise to the level that best fits their incompetence.
Which means that George would rise within the pirate bureaucracy to the title of Pirate King.
Except that there is no pirate bureaucracy. Or Pirate King.
There’s just pirate ships, captains of those ships, and pirates.
And occasionally a First Mate or some other second-in-command while the captain’s asleep or unavailable.
When George sleeps, he dreams of being Pirate King.
Sitting on a golden throne, and never having to swab the deck ever again.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He had a gambling problem, too.
One day, he bet his boots, and he lost them.
All he had to wear on his feet were his roller skates.
He thought he’d be as agile as a carhop at a drive-in hamburger shack.
Instead, he was pitched and tossed around the deck with every wave, knocking over his crewmates and ruining their aim as they fired their cannon at another ship.
At least it didn’t take much effort to get him to roll along the plank and into the water.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Still, the captain kept him on.
This irritated the crew very much.
So much so, they planned a mutiny at six.
George heard about it, but he was really tired, so he slept through it.
When George woke up, he didn’t know that the crew had already taken the ship and locked the captain in the brig.
“MUTINY!” shouted George, hacking and slashing his way through the ship.
That’s right. He’d mutinied against the mutineers.
The captain thanked George. “I guess I need to hire a new crew now.”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
But then, neither was that Long John Silver guy, and look how he turned out.
He had his own fast food chain.
George decided that was his destiny… his own fast food chain.
He stopped swabbing the deck and put down the mop.
And he got himself hired at a Long John Silvers restaurant.
He figured he’d save his money, take lots of notes, and then break out on his own.
Instead, he ended up on the late shift, mopping the floors.
Defeated, he went back to the ship.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
But he was nothing compared to the blundering cabin boy.
That kid was a total disaster.
The captain was constantly shouting “I’ll have your guts for garters!” at him.
This gave George an idea.
One night, George kidnapped the cabin boy and took him to a tailor.
“Can you make garters out of his guts?” asked George. “It’s for a gift.”
The tailor refused. As did every other tailor in town.
So, George made an ashtray out of the cabin boy’s skull.
“But I don’t smoke,” said the captain.