Category: My stories

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
His sextant wasn’t as much a navigation tool as it was a nutcracker.
He’d sweep the shells off of the maps and charts and shout “Oh, let’s go that way!”
One day, the ship was in the North Atlantic. The next day, he was in the North Pacific.
“Did we just discover the Northwest Passage?” asked the captain.
George looked over the maps and charts, turning them over and over in his hands.
“Hell if I know,” he said. “But can we stop somewhere to pick up more walnuts?”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
For some reason, he’d taken to going everywhere on horseback.
Which was fine when the ship was in port.
Although the owner of The Five Skulls Tavern didn’t take too kindly to the horse crapping all over his floor.
It was when the ship was out to sea that things got difficult.
Horses need a lot of hay and water, and there’s only so much room on a ship.
One morning, George woke up, and the horse was gone.
But, instead of hardtack and gravy, supper was roasted steaks.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Every time he killed someone, he’d have nightmares about it.
And then he’d hesitate that much more before he killed another person.
Pretty soon, George was a twitching, shivering mess.
Surrounded by ghosts, he’d fall to the deck and clutch his head, moaning and clenching his teeth.
The other pirates yelled at George to get up, but the captain told them to let George be.
“Just try not to trip over him,” he said.
George eventually crawled belowdecks, back to his bunk, where he remained in a semi-catatonic state.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he took people hostage, he wasn’t very good at setting a reasonable ransom amount.
“Five dollars!” demanded George. “Not a penny less!”
“That won’t cover our expenses,” whispered the captain. “Try a hundred.”
“One hundred million dollars!” demanded George. “Not a penny more!”
The captain took George aside and gave him a quick lesson in basic math and economics.
“Ah, okay,” said George.
By the time George researched calculated a reasonable ransom, the hostage had escaped.
George apologized, pulled out his wallet. and handed the captain five dollars.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Instead of capturing the HMS Beagle and holding the ship for ransom, George joined their crew and learned all about Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection.
“Does this theory apply to pirates?” asked George. “Because I’m not a very good pirate, and you’d think that I’d have been weeded out of the population by now.”
Darwin pondered this for a while. “Good question,” he said.
Then, he clubbed George on the back of his head and tossed him overboard.
“Error correction,” said Darwin, as George’s body sank below the waves.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Whenever he buried treasure, he’d forget to draw a map to it.
So, he spent a lot of time stumbling around beaches and forests and fields, holding out a lamp and looking for anything familiar.
He never found it again.
“Damn it, George,” said the captain. “Either draw a map or bury the treasure somewhere easy to remember.”
So, the next time George had treasure to bury, he tried to bury it under his bunk.
His crewmates stopped him before he broke through the hull and sank the ship.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Instead of looting and pillaging, he liked to collect small animals.
His favorite was a baby kraken, which he’d kept in a jar by his bunk.
Then, a small tub.
And finally… well… there was no containing it now.
The kraken burst through the deck, grabbing pirates and rending the sails.
Then it hauled itself over the rail and plunged into the sea.
“Well, shit,” sighed the captain.
“Poor Bubbles!” said George.
The survivors stared at George.
“Bubbles was a freshwater kraken,” said George, “and we’re on the ocean.”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
“I think I know what my problem is,” said George. “It’s a lack of opportunities to express my artistic side.”
He painted the cannonballs with interesting colors and swirls and lacquers.
He designed lush and beautiful sails with vibrant images that came to life in the wind.
He rigged wind chimes and other instruments so they’d play a melodic tune with the wind and the rolling of the seas.
They all looked and sounded nice as the ship took a broadsides from a British frigate and went down quickly.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d practiced for years with his cutlass, but never got any better.
That’s when George saw an ad for Karate training.
He shrugged and signed up for classes.
After a few weeks, he got pretty good.
He tried Judo and Tae Kwon Do and other styles, too.
After a while, he’d earned black belts in all of them.
“Here, let me demonstrate,” said George happily, and he broke six boards with his fist.
As the ship slowly sank, the captain tied George to the mast with his black belts.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When the ship’s captain was away on vacation, he hired a temp to run things.
“The captain warned me about you, George,” said the temp captain. “I’ll keep my eye in you.”
So, after their first raid…
“Sorry about that stray shot,” said George. “But that’s a nice eyepatch you’ve got there.”
By the time George’s captain returned, the temp captain was sporting a new eyepatch, a pegleg, and a hook hand.
“Well that ended badly,” said the captain. “I am not looking forward to his review on Glassdoor.”