George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was good with numbers though. He came from a long line of accountants and jewelers.
So, the captain sent George below decks and had him go through the plunder, appraising the booty and matching up pieces of eight.
George happily sorted through the rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, and he cataloged them in his book.
However, the doubloons were another matter.
“I’m not very good with jigsaw puzzles either, Captain,” he said, holding up the resulting mess.
It looked like a bust of the captain.
For once, he smiled.
Category: My stories
George The Pirate Seasick
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Most pirates got their sea-legs in a few days, but George had never gotten used to the rocking and swaying of the boat, and the best place to find him was leaning over the rail, vomiting.
Even when the ship was docked. (He hadn’t gotten used to the swill served by the galley, either.)
So, he volunteered for land raids, and constantly asked the captain about a desk job.
“You know, with headquarters,” said George.
The captain smirked, and chained George into the crow’s nest for a week.
George The Pirate Parries
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Despite years of practice with his cutlass, he’d yet to kill anyone with it.
“I’m good at parrying,” he protested. “I could parry all day and not get a scratch. Then, while I’m parrying, someone else gets the kill. Perhaps if you changed your metrics to measure teamwork instead of individual achievements, it would better reflect my contributions to the raiding parties.”
The captain scratched his beard, thought for a moment, and then handed George a mop.
“The deck needs swabbing,” he chortled.
George wasn’t good at chortling, either.
Never Go Back
For years, I went to a place called Cabo.
I loved the fish tacos and frozen margaritas there.
They opened up a few other locations, and the original location closed, so I’d get my fix Downtown.
Last year, they closed.
No more fish tacos and margaritas.
Then, while I was walking home from a cat show, I saw that the place had reopened as Pepper Jack’s.
I went inside and ordered their fish tacos.
They didn’t have those.
Instead, I had a special burrito.
It was good, but not good enough.
I won’t go back.
You can never go back.
Custody
Usually, a couple going through a divorce will fight bitterly over custody of the kids, and Fred and Mary were no different.
“I don’t want them!” yelled Mary. “You take them!”
“Hell no!” shouted Fred back. “I said abort them both times, but you insisted on keeping them!”
They kept this up for days. The lawyers tried to help, but the unhappy couple just got louder.
Then, the fighting abruptly stopped. Fred and Mary nodded at each other, and both walked out of the conference room.
And never returned.
The lawyers ended up raising the kids.
God help us all.
Mellow
I know a guy who is so mellow, he set his ringer sound on his alarm clock to the tune of a lullabye.
Instead of waking up, he’s further mellowed out by the lullabye, and he gets even more restful sleep.
The ringtone on his phone is the sound of a gentle breeze through the leaves.
If the call is urgent, then a recording of a gently strumming harp reminds him that there’s nothing truly important enough in this life that merits going out in a rush or a panic.
Of course, we fired his lazy hippie ass this morning.
Pudding of the Gods
Prometheus was always stealing things from the Gods to bring down to Man.
“What’s this?” asked Man, staring at a bowl full of strange glop.
“Pudding,” said Prometheus. “It’s delicious. You eat it with a spoon.”
“What’s a spoon?” asked Man.
Prometheus took a spoon out of his pocket.
“That doesn’t look too clean,” said Man.
So, Prometheus wiped it on his toga.
His sweaty, grimy toga.
“You’re kidding, right?” asked Man.
“Oh, just use your fingers,” said Prometheus.
Man did. “Ew. Butterscotch.”
Prometheus growled. “Wait here.”
And he ran up Olympus to get some fire to incinerate Man with.
Atheists In Foxholes
Back in World War 2, US Army regulations clearly stated that there were to be no atheists in foxholes.
Atheists that would ordinarily be assigned to foxholes found themselves reassigned to trenches, bunkers, and pillboxes.
However, the Clinton Administration’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy allowed atheists to join their religious brothers-in-arms in the foxholes.
It also allowed them to engage in all the gay sex they wanted to in those foxholes, just as long as nobody asked them why they weren’t shouting OH GOD, YES while climaxing.
As for the atheist chaplains, there’s no explaining some shit the Army does.
Researcher
We knew from the start that my project would be greater than a single researcher’s lifetime, but no assistant matched my abilities or experience.
So, I cloned myself, and trained my clone to be my assistant.
And when I die, my clone will take over my research, and then he will clone himself.
To train as an assistant, just as I did with him.
And just as was done with me. And the me before.
How long has this been going on?
I don’t know. We never bothered keeping track.
I remind Junior to call himself “Professor” when my time comes.
Unglued
To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
To the man with a screwdriver, everything looks like a screw.
And to a man with spiders glued to his face, everything looks like spiders.
Why someone would glue spiders to his face, I’m not sure.
The man with a hammer offers to smash the spiders with his hammer.
And the man with the screwdriver offers to stab the spiders with his screwdriver.
Neither solution sounds good to the man with spiders glued to his face.
Of course, nobody thought to ask the spiders what they thought or wanted.