Category: Talk Like A Pirate Day

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
George had a habit of using his dagger to whittle bits of wood off of the ship’s railing as toothpicks.
Other pirates picked up this habit from George, and after a week, the whole ship looks like it had been clawed up by a dozen angry cats.
“Enough with the toothpicks!” said the captain. “Stop carving my ship to pieces!”
After that outburst, George left the ship alone.
But he tried to carve a toothpick off of Peg Leg McGinty.
McGinty caught George, and brained him with a club.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Old Smitty wasn’t much better, but he outranked George, and he bossed George around.
He made George do dumb or dangerous things.
Because George didn’t know any better, he’d go ahead and do it.
“That was dumb and dangerous, George,” said the captain. “Also, you did it wrong.”
“I’m just not a very good pirate,” said George.
So, the captain kicked George off the crew.
Standing on the dock, watching as his ship sailed away… and then exploded.
George figured that Old Smitty did something dumb and dangerous correctly.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Calico Keith, on the other hand, was more like what you’d imagine a pirate would be.
He drank, he fought, and he did it all with swagger.
At his funeral, pirates came from all around to pay respects.
George watched the others raise their tankards in a toast.
“HAIL KEITH!”
After everyone left, George dropped his breeches and pissed on Keith’s sailcloth-wrapped corpse.
“You ugly bully,” he murmured.
One of the pirates snuck up on George and shoved him into the grave.
George growled, and planned his next murder.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
How did he become a pirate?
Well, if George existed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he could have been like Spiderman, who was bitten by a radioactive spider.
George could have been bitten by a radioactive pirate.
(Radioactive pirates exist, right? From one of those atomic bomb tests?)
Except that would have made him PirateMan. Which sounds weird.
And unlike Peter Parker, who was a teenaged photographer, slinging webs and stopping crimes, George was a pirate, which is a criminal profession.
Even if he wasn’t very good at it.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was careless with the ship’s supplies, and they were always running out of whale oil for the lamps.
So, George scrounged, and he found a box of Pumpkin Spice Yankee Candles that he’d been meaning to wrap as Christmas presents.
He distributed them throughout the ship and lit the wicks.
Then, he went to sleep.
When he woke up, the whole ship reeked of pumpkins, and he had a craving for pumpkin pie.
Everyone did.
“Set a course for the Whidbey Island Pie Shop!” shouted George. “Full sail!”

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Still, the network wanted George to star in their reality show.
Their first idea was to follow George around, but whatever equipment survived the shipwrecks was stolen and fenced by his crewmates.
The producers changed the format to teams of contestants performing pirate tasks, and George acting as the host.
Frustrated with sponsorship and product placement, George tore down the Jolly Roger flag with the McDonalds logo in the middle.
“I’ll be in my trailer,” he growled.
George didn’t have a trailer. He just wandered around the backlot, growling.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was always coming up with get-rich-quick schemes.
Lately, he’d been getting into beekeeping.
“Farmers in California pay a fortune to get their crops pollinated,” said George, putting on his beekeeper’s mesh and lighting his handheld smoker.
The ship’s deck was swarming with bees, crawling on and flying around the dozens of hives George had built.
“We can also sell the honey they make,” said George.
The rest of the crew, covered from head to toe with bee sting welts, hated the idea, and they pitched the hives overboard.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d done some questionable things, so the captain ordered that George wear a body-mounted camera to record George’s misbehavior.
The results were horrifying.
George deliberately aiming his cannon at the water to avoid hitting a ship.
George giving candy to a baby instead of taunting the baby with it.
George putting money in a church’s poorbox.
“Not even a single chortle or act of indecency!” bellowed the captain. “You’re suspended!”
George was demoted to desk duty.
There was a candy dish on his desk.
Every baby got a piece.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
You know how there’s the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital?
They keep the old Hollywood actor and actress types there.
Well, there was also an old pirate rest home.
And George ended up there.
“But I’m only twenty-three!” yelled George.
The nurses had orders to keep George sedated.
He shuffled around in a hospital gown, his ass hanging out.
Pushing along a walker with wheels.
He spent a lot of time watching the television.
Not really knowing what was going on, not aware of anything, really.

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
While other pirates looted towns for provisions and ammunition, George would return with several plastic bags full of pet goldfish.
“Aren’t they pretty?” he’d beam proudly, and then run back into the pet store for a fish tank.
Of course, he needed pebbles. And plants. And an aerator.
A treasure chest with a lid that flapped every time it released a bubble.
By the time he rolled the shopping cart back to the ship, his crewmates were drunk, and out of live goldfish to challenge each other to swallow.