Recently, I went to Disneyland, and I stayed at a hotel that allowed early access to the park.
It was a Thursday morning, and the crowds hadn’t built up just yet.
I went all the way back to New Orleans Square, and instead of the usual forty-minute serpentine lines for Pirates of the Caribbean, I practically walked all the way up to the gate and boarded the boat.
Floating by the fishing shack, banjo playing, mist and fireflies.
The story washes over me, all around me.
I raise my arms and laugh as the boat plunges down into the past.
Davy Jones
Davy Jones was the lead vocalist for the band The Monkees.
When people said that his locker is at the bottom of the sea, he’d shrug and smile and say:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Maybe it belong to David Bowie? After all, his name was David Jones before he changed it to David Bowie.
You know, because he didn’t want to be confused with Davy Jones.
He’d also shrug and smile and say “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I guess neither wanted to have to explain why there were so many dead sailors in it.
George The Pirate – Fingers
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
You know the knife game, where a person puts their hand on a table, spreads out their fingers, and rapidly stabs a knife in between the fingers?
George managed to stab himself in the leg when he played it.
This is despite the fact that he was sitting at a table, and his legs were under the table.
And he didn’t stab his leg through the table. George wasn’t that strong.
No, he somehow stabbed his leg under the table.
At least he didn’t cut off any fingers, right?
George The Pirate – Bullet
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He spent a lot of time reading books. He liked to read.
He always carried a small book in his shirt pocket.
“Put that book away, George,” said the captain.
“This might one day block a bullet,” he said. “I’ve read stories where someone shoots someone else in the heart, and the bullet gets blocked by a book in their pocket.”
George smiled and sat down.
On his flintlock pistol.
Bang.
“Ouch,” said George. “Help?”
George read his book while the ship’s surgeon removed the bullet from his ass.
Weekly Challenge #699 – DRESSER
- Lizzie
- Tom
- Richard
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
LIZZIE
“This is not a dresser. It’s a cupboard.”
The seller tried to convince her that it was a dresser, a modern dresser, a modern looking dresser. The seller talked a lot. He also smiled a lot. No, he sneered. That made her uncomfortable. He tried to convince her that the shelf standing next to the supposed dresser belonged to the package although it looked completely different. In fact, it wasn’t a shelf at all. It was a coat rack.
She didn’t appreciate being tricked.
It was difficult to stuff all the pieces of the seller inside his stupid modern dresser.
TOM
When Left With a Single Course of Action
With a furrowed brow he pondered the ruin of all things. The deepest furrow newly added to the rows of ancient weights was for his niece Amada Longbridge. A girl with infinite inspection and little else. Was this the third or the fourth time ransom to Barbary Pirates had been transmitted to his agents on the continent? No matter it was this or rounding up rowers for a foray up the Amazon.
“Your Lord,” quietly spoke Arnfleck “Yes.” “A wire from the Americas.” As he read a new furrow settle in above the last. “Seems we’ll need more than Lawyers, Guns, and Money this time.
And there it Sits
It caught my eye as I rounded the corner to the bathroom. In the room forever referend to as the sewing room, a good thirty years after any sewing was done, sat the dresser. I forgot it was there. I had given it to our intentional niece Zen when she had made the sewing room, her room. That was before she became wife and mother. I never cared for the green paint job and at the time of purchase planned to strip it down and leave the raw wood exposed. That was fourth year ago. I’ll get around to it.
RICHARD
Set dresser
I always wanted to work in the movies, but it’s a tough industry to get a foot in the door, and you have to work from the bottom up if you’re serious about making it to the top.
I started in low budget porn flicks, working as a set dresser for such classics as ‘Dyking Miss Daisy’ and ‘Ocean Does Eleven’, but my big break came in ‘Every Which Way, Butt-Loose’, when a cast member dropped out and I was asked to be an anal stunt double.
It brought a whole new meaning to ‘working from the bottom up’!
NORVAL JOE
When the lights came on, the dancers separated. Linoliumanda held tightly to Billbert’s hand.
The principal, Ms. Frunsio scowled at the assembled youth. “If we find out who turned off the lights, you will be suspended.”
Tony stepped in front of Billbert and looked down at him with a sneer. “Well, aren’t you the fancy dresser.”
Marrissa giggled. With his arm around her waist, and hers around his, they shuffled away like a pair of drunks.
Billbert looked at his white t-shirt and new blue jeans and compared himself.
He looked the same as most of the boys his age.
SERENDIPITY
I’m not unusual in wanting to keep alive the last memories of dead relatives; I just have a few more than usual.
When so many of your family die in unusual circumstances, leaving no immediate next of kin, I’ve always been there to take the ashes and give them a new home.
I have so many urns, I bought a dresser to keep them all together.
All, that is, except Aunt Maude.
She always hated the heat, and cremation just didn’t seem appropriate.
So I chopped her up and keep her in the freezer.
Handy for the occasional Sunday roast.
PLANET Z
i don’t own a dresser.
Instead, I own a large armoire and a rolltop desk.
I put my socks, underwear, and shorts in the armoire.
And lay my pants along the top of the rolltop desk.
I hang my undershirts up in the closet.
And then hang them paired with button-down overshirts.
All black, mind you. Because I look good in black.
One of the cats likes to pull out the armoire drawers and crawl in them to sleep.
They shed all over my clothes. Sometimes, they vomit, too.
Then she goes back to sleep.
In another drawer, of course.
George the Monk
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
After he was suspended for pooping on the swab deck, he tried being a Buddhist monk.
They shaved his head, gave him robes, and asked him to chant all day and night.
He got pretty good at it.
It was when they handed him chalk and asked him to make mandalas that George ran into trouble.
Instead of scraping the chalk to make beautiful patterns, he drew dirty pictures on the temple’s floor and walls.
Rubbing his hand through the stubble on his scalp, he returned to his ship.
George’s Mentor
Fred was a pirate, and he was a very good pirate.
Unlike George, who wasn’t a very good pirate.
The captain asked Fred to coach George.
So, Fred and George worked out a set of goals.
And they held weekly progress meetings.
Fred ran George through a series of drills, and then practice exercises to apply what he’d learned.
“I think I’m getting the hang of this,” said George.
And he ran Fred through with his cutlass.
“Oops,” said George.
George tried to bury Fred at sea.
Despite being moored at the port.
Fred’s bloody corpse flopped on the dock.
George the Drugged Pirate
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
This caused him a lot of anxiety and stress, so he went to see a therapist.
The therapist asked George why he was a pirate, and if there was anything else he wanted to be.
“I just want to be a pirate,” said George. “There’s nothing else I want to be.”
The therapist prescribed some anti-anxiety medication, and it helped with George’s stress and anxiety.
But he was still a mediocre pirate. He just didn’t care that he was mediocre.
And he did a half-assed job happily ever after.
George the Pirate Sails
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Sure, he could spot ships from miles away, but they weren’t treasure ships.
They were heavily-armed frigates, fellow pirate ships, or other worthless or dangerous targets.
“It’s not like they’re going to fly flags that say WE HAVE TREASURE or something like that,” said George.
So, George sewed some flags that said WE DON’T HAVE TREASURE to offered to every ship they’d meet.
“It’s reverse psychology,” said George. “Whoever buys one is trying to hide the fact that they have treasure.”
“Where did our sails go?” asked The Captain.
George the Birthday Pirate
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
If you saw him standing there, you’d think he was a good pirate.
But looks can be deceiving.
George didn’t go on pillaging raids.
Instead, he performed at childrens’ birthday parties.
He’d tie up the birthday boy or girl and hold them for ransom.
The ransom would be cake and ice cream for everyone.
He and the kids would sing pirate songs. Wave their plastic cutlasses around.
George was really good at that. And it was really fun.
And he got all the cake and ice cream he wanted.