George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The captain thought that George’s problem was a matter of procedure and discipline.
He made George clock in and clock out for his shift and write detailed reports about what he did while on the clock.
George wasn’t good at reading and writing, so the reports were incomprehensible.
George ended up having to explain what he tried to write, which took even longer.
Giving George no time to do his actual pirate job.
“It’s all in the metrics,” said George, scribbling up another meaningless, illegible report for the day.
George keeps his job
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
In spite of George’s lack of expertise in piracy, piracy is a rare skill in the labor market.
So, even a pirate that’s not very good can command a decent living doing it.
In an era of full employment, George’s prospects became even brighter.
When the captain complained about George’s mistakes or incompetence, he had to consider how hard it would be to replace George.
So, he shrugs and fishes George back out of the water.
“Try not to fall overboard again, please,” says the captain.
“Aye aye, sir.”
George and the poodles
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He spent too much time lying on the deck while poodles romped all around him.
The captain of the ship thought that this was a waste of time, but the captain’s mother was the ship’s chef, and she liked to adopt and raise poodles.
Any time he’d get mad about it with George, his mother would show up and say how much the poodles loved the attention.
When provisions got down to hardtack and water, the poodles vanished.
While the captain’s mother wept, George begrudgingly went back to work.
George gets rain delayed
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When it started to rain during a sea battle, he threw up his hands and shouted “TIME OUT!”
Men on both sides of the conflict lowered their swords, and George ordered the decks to be covered with a tarp.
For three hours, the men sat around, sipped their tea, and a few did belly-slides on the wet tarp.
“Do you think we’ll need to postpone?” said George to the other captain.
Five minutes later, the sun came out, and they rolled back the tarp to begin fighting once more.
Weekly Challenge 983 – PICK TWO Aviator Circuit Twice Chamber Squirrel
- Tom
- Tura
- Richard
- Lizzie
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
The next topic is Caught in time
LIZZIE
What is that?
A map.
Of what?
No idea.
North Pole?
No.
South Pole?
No.
Then what?
No idea.
Speak louder, my hearing aid is not charged.
NO IDEA.
No need to shout.
You told me… Ok, never mind.
So, it’s not the North Pole or the South Pole.
Nope.
What is it then?
I don’t know, I forgot to bring my glasses.
Aviator’s map?
No.
Well, when I look at it this way, it kind of looks like a squirrel.
A what?
A squirrel. Just squint and you’ll see.
Short circuit alert. Later.
It’s a squirrel, I tell ya!
RICHARD
— Chocks Away! —
Three solo circuits around the airfield and you’re an aviator, according to our instructor. The rest of the lads, like myself, had their doubts. Most of us had never even sat in a cockpit until a week ago, and now here we were, flying!
After a fashion, anyway, but we weren’t learning to be stylish. As long as we could get up into the air, stay in the air, and read a map we were good to go.
Now, it was just a matter of waiting.
For the sirens, scrambling us to take flight, and take on the enemy planes.
SERENDIPIDY
I won’t tell you twice.
Tell me what you know, or it’s the torture chamber for you!
And you know what happens there, don’t you?
Little boys like you don’t last very long on the rack, and it’s surprising how talkative you become once I start to tighten the thumbscrews.
So you should probably reconsider your attitude.
Today’s test is on your multiplication tables, so tell me what you know and prove that you’ve been practicing, and doing the homework you were set.
Or, I very much regret, that the next lesson you’ll be learning will be very painful indeed.
NORVAL JOE
As if he might see Sabrina outside, Billbert gazed out the window into the courtyard where students locked their bicycles. Sabrina wasn’t there, but Bobbi was, wearing aviator glasses and walking a circuit around the bikes. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the mirror-like lenses, but Billbert was sure Bobbi was looking for him.
If he could find her at lunch, he would ask her what her problem was. Was she a spy or running interference for her brother, the bully?
Though he searched at break and lunch, he saw neither Bobbi, nor Sabrina, for the rest of the day.
TOM
In honorable company
From his angle he could clearly see twice the number of chambers were loaded. “Say my good-fellow your second seem to have chambered a second.” The duke hefted the pistol level to his hip. “Why I do believe you are correct.” “I will wait till corrections are in order.” The duke just smiled and raised the gun higher. “Not very sporting old man.” “Rank has its perks.” “So does being raised on the streets of London.” If he had been twice the gentleman as the duke all would have ended with biting words instead of business end of a dirk.
TURA
Chamber; squirrel
———
My job at the research institute is putting the selection into selective breeding.
The slug loaded into the first chamber smacks into the branch the squirrel is hiding behind, panicking it into motion. The shot pattern from the second brings it down.
The squirrels eventually got smart enough to just freeze onto the branch. At first, I could sidle around for a clear shot, but now they’re smart enough to not panic, and keep hidden. I don’t let up though.
After making intelligent squirrels, we’ll try bigger animals: wolves, bears. Humans need more competition these days, to keep them sharp.
PLANET Z
When you load a squirrel gun, be sure to load a squirrel in every chamber.
Load it right, so it comes out head first.
You don’t want to point it at a guy, pull the trigger, and come up empty.
And never point a squirrel gun at anyone unless you intend to pull the trigger.
Otherwise, you’ll get a reputation for giving empty threats.
Hold that squirrel gun like you mean it.
No backing down now.
And don’t stuff it down your pants like some kid.
You don’t want that thing going off and shooting a squirrel in your pants.
George and gunpowder
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He heard that the great pirate Blackbeard put gunpowder in his rum, so he thought that if he put gunpowder in his rum, that would make him great, too.
George snuck into the ship’s powder hold and grabbed a bag of powder.
The problem was, he’d grabbed a bag of saltpeter that hadn’t yet been mixed with sulfur and charcoal.
When George poured it into his rum, well, let’s just say that George wasn’t very good at something else.
“No wonder why Blackbeard doesn’t have any kids,” said George.
George has mandatory fun
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Which is why he would get excited when the captain would take the whole crew to an off-site team-building fun day.
“No plundering and pillaging!” cheered George. “Yay!”
The last time, they went to a bowling center, which also had pool tables, darts, and other activities.
The problem was, the pirates with peglegs couldn’t bowl because of the shoes, the pirates with hook hands couldn’t shoot pool, and the pirates with eyepatches couldn’t throw darts.
Tempers flared, fights broke out, and they ended up plundering and pillaging the place.
George the bad poet
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He also wasn’t a very good poet.
He’d write his poetry, put on a beret, and sneak into coffeehouses and dives to read them.
People would smoke their joints, sip their cappuccinos, and snap their fingers.
Nobody would judge. Everyone got the same snaps.
So, George didn’t know he wasn’t a very good poet, and he had no incentive to improve.
Nobody took him under their wing to teach him about good poetry.
And he got so full of himself, he didn’t listen to anybody else’s work to learn.
George meets Werner Herzog
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
That didn’t matter much to Werner Herzog, the famous documentary filmmaker.
He followed George around with a camera, capturing the life of a typical pirate at sea.
Or, in George’s case, in the sea, as he had a habit of tripping and falling overboard.
When the ship encountered a cargo vessel, ripe for plunder, the only two men who weren’t fighting were Werner and George.
“Just sharpening my cutlass,” said George, drawing his sword against a whetstone over and over, looking over the rail nervously at the battle’s progress.
George plays with a cat
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He spent most of his day sitting in a deck chair, petting the ship’s cat while looking out at the ocean.
The ship’s cat was supposed to catch and eat the mice and rats in the hold, but it preferred to lay in George’s lap and sleep.
Every now and then, George would swab the deck.
The cat would curl up in George’s deck chair and nap.
After George finished swabbing the deck, George would pick up the cat, sit in his chair, and pet the cat some more.