Category: My stories

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He preferred the feel of sand between his toes to the wet wooden deck of the ship.
So, when the ship docked at port, he hauled sand from the beach to the ship and spread it all over the deck.
The extra weight slowed the ship down, and it took longer to catch up to cargo vessels that they wanted to raid.
“Fine by me,” said George, laying in a chaise lounger on the deck and sipping an umbrella drink. “More time for me to work on my tan.”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Long before Elon Musk released “Smart Summon” in his Tesla line of cars, George worked on a similar feature for his pirate ship.
George fired a flare pistol in the air, which signaled his ship to drift to his location and pick him up.
This made sense when he was standing on the docks.
But when he was drunk at a bar a mile inland, well, that caused a whole lot of problems.
Sailing up the street, knocking over market stalls and ruining the cobblestones, and people running away.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he was a kid, his family would paint eggs for Easter and hide them around the yard.
Then, the kids would hunt for the eggs.
Even though he was all grown up now, George yearned for the innocence of youth.
So he painted cannonballs and hid them all over the ship for the crew to find.
“ENEMY VESSEL TO STARBOARD!” shouted the captain. “LOAD THE CANNON!”
“Where are the cannonballs?” shouted the first mate.
Nothing like a little excitement to make an Easter Cannonball Egg hunt fun, right?

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Nobody endorsed him on LinkedIn for piracy, kidnapping, sailing, looting, pillaging…
Anything related to being a pirate.
Every time he requested to connect to someone, they’d decline it.
Nobody on the seas or land wanted to be associated with George professionally.
He tried to join a few groups, but the moderators refused to accept his requests.
George even tried LinkedIn Pro, which told him that a lot of pirates were checking his profile every day.
A lot of big names on that list.
At least they knew his name.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d rather buy lottery tickets than loot and pillage.
And when he did loot and pillage, he’d use his shares of the booty to buy more lottery tickets.
He never won anything. Well, okay, a few bucks here and there.
And that one time that he won large fries at McDonalds instead of the small fries. That was something.
“The odds of you winning are astronomical,” said the captain. “Why do you play?”
“If I lose, I don’t die,” said George, loading the cannon as The British Fleet approached.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He always tried to be good.
He went to school and he went to church.
George would go to Confession every day.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” said George.
“Yes, George, I now,” said Father Timothy. “I was the one you were sinning with.”
The Archbishop of Boston reassigned Father Timothy to another parish.
George, on the other hand, was accused of lying, and he spent years in therapy.
And then, one day, the therapist said:
“What if we pretend to be pirates?”
And, so, George did.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d heard the legends of Atlantis, the island paradise that had sank beneath the waves.
“It’s still out there, son,” said a grizzled fisherman, pulling out a map. “I’m too old to seek it myself, but I could sell you this map.”
George bought the map, raised anchor, and sailed for Atlantis.
Except that he had the map upside-down, and ended up in the middle of Fenway Park in Boston.
Thankfully, the Red Sox were away in New York.
George found a bar, and watched the game on television.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Other pirates looted and plundered, while George spent a lot of time writing to his grandmother.
She’d send care packages, which contained cookies and brownies and socks and underwear.
His crewmates stole George’s socks, ran the underwear up the mast to fly with the Jolly Roger, and ate all of the cookies and brownies.
Clutching their stomachs, they vomited blood and died horrible, painful deaths.
George wrote his grandmother again to tell her that she really needs new glasses.
“Or put bigger labels on the vanilla and arsenic bottles.”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
All the other pirates looked for buried treasure with their treasure maps.
George got an idea and made really cool-looking treasure maps.
Then he’d sell them to unsuspecting pirates.
He made a lot of money this way.
Too much to carry around.
So, he put it in an old tea chest and buried it in his back yard.
And drew up a map to remind him where it was.
He sold that map to someone by accident.
Sure enough, the next morning, there was a hole in the yard.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was a fierce competitive eater though.
Won a few championships at county fairs and restaurant openings.
Hot dogs, pizzas, chicken wings… if you could eat it, George ate it.
A lot of it. And he ate it quickly.
Afterwards, he’d go off to an alley and throw it all up, but he’d kept it down long enough to pick up the trophy and the prize money.
But George didn’t mind it all that much, considering how many times he’d been seasick during his days on the high seas.