George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He tried to make light of this during his lightning talks at the annual Pirate Conference.
Lightning talks are where a bunch of presenters talk about a subject for five minutes.
It’s sort of like Toastmasters.
Despite not being good at piracy, George liked speaking to a captive audience about it.
Well, figuratively captive. A literally captive audience made him nervous and self-conscious.
Which is why he didn’t kidnap many people and hold them for ransom.
He preferred to just borrow money from people and not pay it back.
George the Lover
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
However, this didn’t matter. Because all the ladies love pirates.
So dashing, so handsome.
Who cares if they’re bumbling incompetents, fumbling their sword and tripping over every rope and pile of cannonballs, as long as they set a virile and dashing figure.
Nobody had to know the truth, and George certainly wasn’t about to tell them.
His shipmates, on the other hand, had absolutely no problem telling the women how much of a fool George was.
And that’s why there’s hookers. They’re paid not to ask too many questions.
George is dangerous with cannon
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was dangerous with a cannon.
Not dangerous as in “Oh, no, pirates are attacking us!” dangerous but “Oh, crap! Who let George near the cannon?” dangerous.
He once blew a hole in the deck of the ship, and water poured in.
So, he reloaded the cannon and aimed it at the deck.
“The water will escape through the second hole,” George proudly said.
The captain ordered the men to plug the hole with George.
“No stabbing him,” the captain said. “Or we’ll have to plug those holes too.”
George the Bartender
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
As a bartender, though, he absolutely rocked.
You know that move in Cocktail where the guys flip the bottle behind their backs?
George has that move beat.
You can shout twenty drink orders at him, and he’ll get every one of them done right and fast.
And done good. Only the finest for George and his customers.
“Grog,” says a pirate.
George sighs. All they ever order is grog, whiskey, and rum.
George fills a tankard with grog and hands it over.
The pirate gulps it down.
No tip.
George and the Seminar
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He needed to do something about it, so he signed up for seminar.
There he was, standing up and screaming at self-help guru Tony Roberts about how he would be a better pirate.
A better pirate, a better person.
Tony Robbins, ten feet tall, grinning ten feet wide, screaming back at George, wanting more.
George’s swollen face, covered with tears, screaming louder and louder and louder.
“I WILL BE THE BEST PIRATE IN HISTORY!”
George came away from the seminar feeling good about himself.
He also stole Tony’s yacht.
George the Jedi
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d pretend that his cutlass was a lightsaber, and he’d make a lightsaber humming noise when he swung it around.
“Stop that,” said the captain. “It’s annoying. Concentrate on actually hitting someone with it.”
So George did.
“Ouch!” yelled the captain. “I meant hit someone fighting us.”
George dove into the battle, swinging his cutlass around and humming the lightsaber sound.
He didn’t hit anyone, but he did manage to cut a few important ropes and cables.
When the sail covered George, the others left him trapped under it.
Weekly Challenge #877 Host
The next weekly challenge topic is: Scroll
SCRIBBLING WREN LISA
The Last Supper
John was the host with the most, his pavlovas were to die for.
He was a demon in the kitchen and always used fresh local ingredients. A lot of the vegetables he grew himself at his well tended allotment plot. He blended his own spices and there always seemed to be one flavour you just couldn’t put your finger on what it was.
There wasn’t a pudding today, it didn’t matter because after the main course his guests couldn’t move anyway. They weren’t stuffed, he’d drugged them. It was then that he shackled them and began to enjoy his evening.
RICHARD
Hostess with the mostess
She was the perfect host: Attentive, considerate and she always made you feel right at home.
Her parties were always memorable, and you knew you’d made it, if ever you received an invitation.
These parties were occasions not to be missed, and were often frequented by politicians, judges and celebrities, you’d be rubbing shoulders with everybody who was anybody.
She had a cracking pair of tits too! Along with a figure to die for and a wicked technique with the whip and restraints.
She was expensive, of course, but you certainly got your money’s worth.
Best damn dominatrix in town!
TOM
Sugar in Any Form
I have a warm memory from childhood of the Hostess thrift story. A little bit bigger than three bathrooms, but racks of week, to month old: ho ho-s, ding dongs, suzy q’s, sno balls, zingers, and my beloved Twinkies. ALL mime, mine, mine. I was a sugar junky. Would have been dead by now if it hadn’t been for a three years stay in an organic bakery drying me out. Last year my youth caught up with me. Diabetes. A host of sugar adjacent food sources were purged. Am I happy? Let us say being good is its own punishment
LIZZIE
“A plate full of love,” she said, looking at the heart-shaped biscuits and blinking her eyes slowly, like a cat.
He frowned.
She raised her voice to a higher pitch. “You don’t think so?”
Careful, he thought. Never ever contradict a host holding a plate.
“Valentine?” She insisted. “Love and all that?”
He nodded. Pink little hearts…
“Fine, don’t say anything. I’ll toss them in the garbage.”
He nodded.
That’s when that plate flew in his direction.
The gash on his head wasn’t the shape of a heart.
That love wasn’t meant to happen. He just hated pink freaking biscuits.
SERENDIPIDY
You’ve heard of the heavenly host? Let me introduce you to the unheavenly host.
We don’t sit around on clouds all day, dressed in white nightgowns, playing harps. We favour denim and leather, and cruise around on Harleys, blasting out sick riffs on Les Paul sunbursts.
Then there’s the whole being saintly and giving it up to God thing.
Stuff that! For us, it’s mob rule, sex, drugs and rock n roll.
I’ll be honest with you, heaven these days is pretty empty. When the angels see the fun they could have with us, they’re down here like a shot!
NORVAL JOE
The two knights directed Billbert and Sabrina to a rusted Chrysler 300 with all the windows tinted. They were pushed into the back seat. The dark knights squeezed in beside them.
An hour later they pulled up to a decrepit cabin dwarfed by tall pines and redwoods.
Inside the cabin they found an old man wearing a black hood with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth. He smiled a yellow toothed smile. “I will be your host while you stay with us.”
Billbert scoffed. “I have a host of questions. First. Do all of you have yellow teeth?”
PLANET Z
Aside from dropping dead in his own mansion, Mr. Body was actually a pretty good host for the party.
The invitations went out, the mansion was clean and well-decorated, and the caterers provided the best wine, appetizers, and dinner to the guests.
Leaving out so many weapons, well, that may have been taking the decorations a bit too far.
And when it comes to hosting a murder mystery, well, ten out of ten points for that.
In the end, everyone had a great time.
Well, except for the murderer, of course. They were hauled off to jail by the cops.
George in the crow’s nest
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Every time the captain would bring on a new recruit, he’d put that new recruit in George’s bunk.
George would complain, but the captain told him to stop whining and find another place to sleep.
After moving around the whole ship, George ended up in the crow’s nest.
It was quiet up there, but the ship swayed a lot, and George frequently vomited over the side and on to the pirates standing on deck.
“Serves them right for stealing my bunk,” George muttered, before heaving up his guts again.
George beats the Market
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He also wasn’t a very good investor. He stayed out of the stock market.
But he still watched the stock ticker, and would cheer when the market went up.
“When the market goes up, people make money,” said George. “And that means more stuff to loot.”
It also meant that people could afford better security guards, so George found himself getting arrested a lot.
When the market went down, people sold their stuff on eBay.
Which George would sell right back to them when the market went up again.
George and the Vampires From Mars
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he was tapped to direct the ship’s fall stage production, he got so excited, he knocked over his coffee on to the pile of scripts.
Some pages were ruined, so George did his best and salvaged what he could.
The resulting mess was a chaotic, confusing combination of War of the Worlds and Dracula.
“Vampires from Mars?” asked the captain. “Shouldn’t that be Spiders from Mars?”
“No, you’re thinking of David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust,” said George.
“Let’s do that instead then,” said the captain.
George played… guitar.