George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
While fleeing British pirate hunters, George tended to get lost among the islands.
Running low on supplies, his ship run aground, the crew fished for what they could, and ended up with nets full of turtles.
They cooked up the turtles, and devised a plan.
George opened a restaurant on the island, and people came from far and wide to attend the opening.
Pirates and British Navy sailors waited for hours for a table.
They never got one. George and the crew stole a ship and fled to safety.
George talks to himself
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He spent a lot of time swabbing the deck.
Every now and then, he’d pause and look at his reflection in the mop bucket.
Sometimes, he’d talk to himself.
The other pirates found this disturbing, and they asked the captain to do something.
“Maybe if you stopped shunning him and actually treated him nicely, he wouldn’t have to talk to himself in a bucket?” said the captain.
The crew pondered this, and then dumped the bucket on George’s head and pushed him overboard.
“That works too,” said the captain.
George and Wowbagger
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was a worthless navigator, awful swordsman, and a completely unreliable deckhand.
As he leaned on the starboard rail, a silver spaceship hovered by the port rail.
A ramp extended from the ship and a grey-green alien walked out.
“George?” it asked, reading from a clipboard. “George the Pirate?”
George turned around. “Yes?”
“You’re not very good,” it said. “I thought I’d let you know that.”
The alien turned around, returned to its ship, and the spaceship flew away.
George shrugged and went back to leaning on the rail.
Weekly Challenge #918 PICK TWO Brand awareness, Lot, Random, Envision, Dozen, Secretary
The next topic is Contact lens
TOM
Small Pleasures
Jimmy’s dad was a working-class man. A time where the color of your shirt outline the vocation that selected you. Despite limited funds in their home, Jimmy’s day faithfully every Saturday morning wake him up for a trip to the Bakery. It was Jimmy’s job to choose a random dozen donuts for breakfast. He knew his mother favorite and each sister’s. His younger brother would eat anything within 14 inches of his mouth. Choosing for Dad was always a challenge. He didn’t have a sweet tooth like the rest of the family. So, Jimmy chose one stuffed with olives
LISA
November 23rd
Christmas had crept into the incident room a week ago with random cards on filing cabinets and some very incongruous tinsel. I’m only there today as a picture on the wall.
So, the police now know who’s doing this. Except they don’t. Only I do and I’m locked in a basement with a dozen faces that are all more familiar than I’d like them to be.
I’ve told the girls I’m police. I try being upbeat; a lot have been here for months. I try not to think of the faces on that board that aren’t down here with us.
NORVAL JOE
A dozen teenagers gathered in the empty lot across the street from where Billbert sat on the curb.
Buhmilda shoved some bread into his mouth and said, “Swallow quick. Those people over there aren’t some random crowd of onlookers.”
When Billbert’s vision cleared, he saw the burly crowd of yellow-toothed Black Knights, and jumped to his feet.
Buhmilda looked to Mr. Withybottom. “Well, Cuz? Should we take the kids to your place, or mine?”
Linoliumanda’s father looked aghast. “Why do we have to take them anywhere?”
Buhmilda shook her head sadly. “Climb in kids.” And motioned them to her car.
RICHARD
Sold!
I’d never been to an auction before, but I was having fun.
I placed a few practice bids on random items, just to get a feel for things, in readiness for the lot I’d had my eye on right from the start.
Just a suitcase, one of a number of lost luggage lots, and despite the stories of people finding all sorts of expensive surprises in them, I’d a sneaky suspicion the auction house went through them beforehand.
I just wanted the suitcase: perfect for my next holiday.
I won!
The suitcase, and the twenty kilos of cocaine it contained!
LIZZIE
The secretary was rushing back and forth, folders everywhere. She was so upset that a pile of papers started to spin around all the way to the ceiling. “What’s happening?” She threw her hands in the air. “Brand awareness report. I have 10 minutes. 10 minutes?!” He offered to help, but at that point everything was beyond any help. “I quit, there.” And she stormed out of the office, a trail of paperwork swirling behind her. He just stood in the corridor, wondering how she had managed to get the papers to do that, a shiver going down his spine.
SERENDIPIDY
As an apprentice, I’d had it drummed into me: Brand awareness. Nail that, and everything else falls into place.
Your clients should be able to make that instant association, must be able to envision what the future will look like; how it will feel; how you will change their lives.
It all comes down to brand awareness.
It’s something I’ve never forgotten, and I’ve always striven to put it first and foremost into every interaction, with every client.
Like right now.
“It’s red hot” I say to them, turning the brand in the flames.
“This is really going to hurt!”
PLANET Z
I won’t be going to the local donut shop anymore.
All the register girl has to do is put on a plastic disposable glove, pick out donuts, put them in bags or boxes, and push a few buttons on the register.
It’s not like she has to make change. The credit card reader does all that.
And yet, the last screen on the credit card reader asks how much I want to tip them.
I press NO TIP, grab the bags, and head to the car.
It’s not like they can spit on my food, because I saw it all.
George visits Abortion Island
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
His ship ran aground on a small island off of the coast of South Carolina.
“Welcome to Abortion Island,” said a grizzled docksman. “Sorry about the lighthouse, been out for three days.”
He led George to the clinic, a small medical facility and dormitory.
“The ferryboat brings patients, the doctor performs the procedure, and when they’re ready, they return to the mainland.”
George stood and stared.
It took George seven days to repair his ship.
He kept to himself, sleeping in his bunk.
And he left without saying goodbye.
Call me George
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
“Maybe you should give pirating a rest?” said the captain, tallying up the damage from George’s latest mishap. “Whaling is big these days. My brother has a ship.”
George packed his bags, disembarked, and walked down the docks to his new home.
“Your first time whaling?” said a lanky greenhorn, extending his hand. “Call me Ishmael.”
“Call me George,” said George, smiling.
A year later, they found themselves bloodied and battered, adrift on the Pacific in a coffin.
“That ended badly,” said Ishmael. “So, tell me more about piracy.”
George ponders
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Some nights, he’d gaze up at the stars, wondering how he fit in to the world, or if there was some kind of hidden cosmic plan out there.
“Where are we?”
“Why am I here?”
“What is my purpose?”
“What does it all mean?”
Then he’d connect all the bright stars in his mind, making shapes and words and symbols.
One he named “George.” He was also holding a map and an astrolabe.
The captain tapped him on the shoulder, clearing his throat.
“I asked ‘Where are we, George?'”
George and the protestors
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Nobody would ever build a monument or statue to him.
No plaque, no bench.
He sat in the park and rested.
Masked protestors swarmed in, charging and screaming, armed with sledgehammers and a crane.
“Down with hate and slavery!’ they shouted. “We love!”
They pounded at the Confederate War Veterans statue, tugging and pulling it until it toppled and fell.
On top of George.
The protestors ran when they heard ambulance sirens, leaving him thrashing and struggling, shouting for help.
The medics tended to George, and carried him away.
George and the seven cities
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
George sought out El Dorado, the City of Gold.
But instead of a city literally made of Gold, it turned out to be a village ruled by some naked dude who rolled around in Gold dust every morning, and then washed it off in the lake.
George stripped naked, rolled around in Gold dust, and proclaimed himself king.
The natives bowed down to George. Except for the real king.
Over and over they did this.
After a week, El Dorado ran out of Gold dust.
And George left emptyhanded.
George passes out
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Some say he drinks too much to remember.
And others say he doesn’t drink enough to forget.
Bleary-eyed, climbing into his hammock, cabin spinning.
The rocking back and forth.
Is it the waves and the ship, or just how much he drank?
It doesn’t matter. He leans out of his hammock and throws up.
The hammock wobbles. He falls into the puddle of vomit.
Passing out.
He’ll do the same thing tomorrow. And the day after that.
“Another goddamned day of this shit,” he mumbles.
And passes out again.