George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When bad things happened, he always blamed others.
“Maybe you should look in the mirror, George?” said the captain.
So, George did. And he blamed the mirror.
From that day on, George smashed every mirror he saw.
“Damn you all!” he’d shout, whacking the mirror with the butt of his cutlass until it was nothing but tiny shards of broken glass.
He kept them in a bag on his belt, and he’d get angry and stuff it in people’s mouths.
“CHEW IT!” he’d shout.
And he’d smash more mirrors.
George’s paradox
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was constantly wrecking his ship, and it spent a lot of time being repaired.
Eventually, every part of the ship needed to be replaced at least once.
“So, if every part of the ship has been replaced, is this still the same ship?” asked George.
Some of the crew said yes, some said no, and some just stared back, confused.
Meanwhile, back at the dock, Captain Theseus stood before a skeletonized ship, ranting and raving.
“Damn that George!” Theseus yelled. “He stripped my ship for spare parts again!”
George is worse than Hitler
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
But at least he wasn’t always pointing at people and shouting “YOU’RE WORSE THAN HITLER!” like Old Man Johnson was.
“That’s really annoying,” said George. “isn’t there something useful you can do?”
One morning, they found Old Man Johnson in his bunk, dead.
Nobody went to his funeral, and there wasn’t even an obituary in the paper.
But everyone assumed that his last words were “YOU’RE WORSE THAN HITLER!”
Well, maybe not shouted, Probably wheezed, because George’s hands were on the guy’s throat, choking the life out of him.
George’s dairy
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The stress of being a pirate caused him indigestion and ulcers.
So, he drank a lot of milk and ate smooth foods like yogurt.
It’s not easy to get those things fresh out at sea, so he filled the cargo hold with cows and a fully-operational dairy.
The crew saw the cows and thought “steak”, but George convinced them otherwise with some fine artisanal cheeses.
“Why don’t you just become a farmer?” asked the captain.
George thought for a moment, shrugged, and went below decks for the morning milking.
George eats the crew
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When supplies ran low on the ship, there were only two options: rationing and finding another ship to attack and rob.
Well, okay… they could have headed back to port for more supplies, but where’s the fun in that?
And there are only so many crewmates to eat.
The captain called for the crew to assemble on the deck.
Only George showed up.
“Did we eat everyone else?” asked the captain.
“I guess so, captain,” said George.
They headed back to port for more supplies.
And, of course, recruits.
George never minds the weather
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he was out at sea, he wouldn’t bother with a spyglass or a barometer or any of the traditional weather forecasting tools.
He’d pull out his cell phone and check the weather application on it.
Usually, he couldn’t get a signal, and he could only tell if it was raining by whether the cell phone was wet.
However, on the rare times he got a signal, he’d still get the forecast wrong.
Because he’d disabled the GPS locator, and would get the forecast from their home port’s location.
Weekly Challenge #895 – Canyon
The next topic is Reviewal, Painfully shy, Rats, Translation, Crack of dawn, Shine
RICHARD
Undeliverance
As we paddled into the canyon, Jack murmured, “If you hear banjos, just keep paddling!”
“Very funny” I replied, but to be honest, I was unnerved. The rock walls closed in on us as the current caught our canoe and we began to speed, ever faster, through the narrow passage.
If we were to capsize here, gun-toting hillbillies would be the least of our problems.
Thankfully, we got through without incident and began to unpack on a handy beach.
Then, I heard the sound of a shotgun bolt drawn back, and a voice behind called out, “Squeal, piggy. Squeal!”
LIZZIE
Canyon was a crow.
Canyon hated his name.
Canyon abhorred the guy who had named him.
Canyon never replied when the guy called him.
The guy’s greenhouse was his pride.
So, Canyon started with pebbles and slowly upgraded to stones.
The day one of the windows shattered, Canyon cawed in triumph.
That’s when he stopped being Canyon and became a Jerk.
Canyon didn’t like Jerk either.
The guy fixed the window and sneered.
A convoluted plan ensued. Canyon’s buddies would help.
Well, the guy didn’t live long enough to enjoy his greenhouse.
It was a murder, by God, a murder!
LISA
Some Unsettling News
I’m getting married on a plane, odd because I’ve never flown well. It’s turbulent, the pilot’s struggling and I’m expecting to wake up any minute. But I don’t. I’m falling, falling from the plane into a canyon and I’ve not saved my future wife…
Then, I wake.
Next to her.
The woman, I found out yesterday, that slept with my best mate on our wedding night.
The woman that said his daughter was mine; my wife of thirty six years.
I roll over on blood soaked sheets and try to get back to sleep wondering when to report her death.
SERENDIPIDY
The police report stated it was death by misadventure, an unfortunate combination of standing too close to the edge, a selfie stick, and concentrating more on the perfect pout, than on keeping her balance.
Death, by Instagram.
It wasn’t, of course. It was murder: Premeditated, planned and perfect.
“Get a selfie on the edge”, I suggested, “you’ll be perfectly safe.”
And she would have been, had I not tampered with the stick the night before.
As she pressed the button, the spring released, propelling her precious phone over her head.
She lunged. Grabbed. Failed. Fell.
I got a great photo!
TOM
Barney Google he ain’t
When I was a kid, my grandma came to live with us. We were a Daily New family, but my grandma was a Tribune reader. The Trib was the size of a telephone book. Not much interest to a child of eight. What was cool about the Trib was the comic section, four pages. Which was good because some of the stripes made no sense at all. Prince Valiant boring. And Steve Canyon way beyond my pay teeny-bopper grade. Good old squared jawed Stev was the inspiration for my favorite cartoon Clutch Cargo which employed that cheesy Syncro-Vox lip sync.
NORVAL JOE
Neither Billbert or either of the girls had any idea where they were. The sun was just beginning to lighten the sky, so Billbert guessed which direction was east. As they flew north they passed over ridges and small canyons. They saw marijuana fields below them and eventually came upon a small general store where a road crossed a river.
They landed in the parking lot.
Linoliamanda read the green road sign, “Honeydew, California. Population three.”
Someone hung an “Open” sign in the doors window.
“Oh, good. I’m starving,” Sabrina said. “Let’s get something to eat before we head on.
PLANET Z
The tambourine man fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed him.
Through the empty streets of the evening empire, concrete canyons covered by the sands of time.
Over to the docks, casting off the ropes from a magic swirling ship.
Sailing across the sky, the sun.
The gunslinger followed the trail of smoke rings, far past the frozen leaves of the snowy forest.
And on the windy beach, the tambourine man’s ship had foundered.
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow, but not the gunslinger’s bullet.
The pistol spun, and a gloved hand returned it to its holster.
George the safety officer
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The captain stripped George of his duties and made him safety officer.
“You’re an expert on unsafe things, considering how many accidents you’ve caused.”
George took to the new assignment quickly.
The smoke alarms took a while to get calibrated properly.
FIRE DRILL! shouted George when the alarms would go off by accident.
The men gathered on the deck, filling buckets with sea water to throw on the fire.
After the tenth false alarm, they tore out the smoke alarms, wrapped George with the wires, and threw him overboard.
George’s Popcorn
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He had a habit of microwaving popcorn, which stunk up the whole ship.
By the time the other pirates went to the galley, George had eaten it all.
The pirates suggested that George eat bagged premade popcorn, but George said that it tasted stale.
So, George tried the traditional Indian method of making popcorn: throwing whole ears of popcorn on an open flame.
Instead of the stench of microwave popcorn, George’s shipmates smelled burning wood.
“I made enough to share,” beamed George, as the ship was engulfed in flames.
The Georgest George
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He wasn’t even a very good George the Pirate.
In a George the Pirate contest, he came in third.
A cardboard cutout of George came in second place, and the shadow that it cast on the wall came in first.
George drew his cutlass and slashed the cardboard cutout to pieces, destroying it and its shadow.
“I AM THE GEORGEST GEORGE!” screamed George.
He held the trophy high over his head.
With first and second place vacant, the judges changed their decision.
They awarded first place to George’s shadow.