Category: My stories

George wasn’t a pirate.
He was a barkeep.
He bought this bar and named it George the Pirate.
And pirates from all around would come here to drink.
Sometimes, they’d pay with a ship’s wheel, or a figurehead, or an anchor.
All the junk you see hanging on the walls.
They’d tell stories, but it was tradition to tell them as if they were about George.
And George would laugh and serve another round.
He had no children to leave the bar to, but he lives on through his stories.
And we tell them, and raise our tankards to George.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Still, he did his best to find ways of being useful.
Every year, he ran The Great Pirate Chili Cookoff.
Pirates from all around the world sailed in to challenge each other’s cooking prowess.
Sometimes, all-out wars would break out, especially between factions of pirates who thought that chili should include beans and those who thought beans don’t belong in chili.
After the smoke cleared, George and his shipmates would loot the bodies and abandoned ships.
“Very clever,” said George’s captain. “Just sleep downwind from everybody else tonight, okay?”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate,
Plus, he always had an annoying ringtone on his phone.
It was pretty bad when the phone would go off while a raiding party was sneaking up on a town.
“Can you at least put that phone on vibrate?” hissed the captain.
“Sorry,” said George, and he pressed a button on the side of the phone.
Then, George would forget to set the ringer back on, and he’d miss important calls.
Eventually, everyone learned to just text George.
He’d respond with annoyingly cute animated stickers that nobody could understand.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
So, as other pirates groused over daily status meetings, George saw them as a welcome respite from the routine and drudgery of piracy.
Instead of keeling and kauling, he could delight in endless Power Point presentations and mission statements.
“Enough with the meetings,” growled the crew. “Can’t we just sail the high seas and loot and plunder?”
“Certainly,” said George. “But recent metrics clearly show great improvements in efficiency, performance, and safety.”
The crew lifted George with their legs, not their backs, as they strung him from the yardarm.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Maybe I’m just judging him on an unfair scale.
I mean, you hear about pirates like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd and Jack Sparrow.
Those are really high standards to live up to.
It’s like me judging you by comparing you to Gandhi or Martin Luther King or George Washington.
There’s no way you’d stack up to legendary figures like that.
But the truth is, I’m judging George on his merits, and he wasn’t a very good pirate at all.
Next time, don’t be so quick to judge me, okay?

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Other pirates had huge bounties on their heads. George didn’t.
“I’m sorry, George,” said the Governor of Port Royal. “You’re just not worth a dime.”
So, George went out to sea so he could learn from the greatest pirates of the age.
And he left a trail of destruction as wide as the ocean.
Blackbeard, The Barbarosas, and Captain Kidd all lost ships to George’s incompetence.
“Impressive,” said the Governor of Port Royal, tallying the damage. “The Admiralty thanks you. I’ll have your reward money ready by noon today.”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
In fact, his captain was so angry at him, he ordered George never to set foot on his ship ever again.
“If you ever do, I’ll run you through with my cutlass and have your guts as garters!”
So, George’s shipmates carried him everywhere on the ship.
He would have gotten a wheelchair, but pirate ships aren’t handicap-accessible.
“Oh, so you think you’re smart?” asked the captain.
“Yes,” said George.
The captain thought for a moment. “I guess you are,” he said.
And he made George his First Mate.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
This didn’t stop him from trying, though.
George and his crewmates learned about a castle that contained treasure, guarded by an evil wizard.
They put together a plan, sailed to the island, and raided the castle.
After disarming a series of traps, they finally made it to the treasure room.
The wizard surprised them, and incinerated them with a fireball.
“That’s not fair,” whined George, dropping his dice and crumpling up his character sheet.
“Life’s not fair,” said the captain, behind his DM screen. “Now go swab the deck.”