George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Long before Elon Musk released “Smart Summon” in his Tesla line of cars, George worked on a similar feature for his pirate ship.
George fired a flare pistol in the air, which signaled his ship to drift to his location and pick him up.
This made sense when he was standing on the docks.
But when he was drunk at a bar a mile inland, well, that caused a whole lot of problems.
Sailing up the street, knocking over market stalls and ruining the cobblestones, and people running away.
George and the Easter eggs
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he was a kid, his family would paint eggs for Easter and hide them around the yard.
Then, the kids would hunt for the eggs.
Even though he was all grown up now, George yearned for the innocence of youth.
So he painted cannonballs and hid them all over the ship for the crew to find.
“ENEMY VESSEL TO STARBOARD!” shouted the captain. “LOAD THE CANNON!”
“Where are the cannonballs?” shouted the first mate.
Nothing like a little excitement to make an Easter Cannonball Egg hunt fun, right?
George endorsed
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Nobody endorsed him on LinkedIn for piracy, kidnapping, sailing, looting, pillaging…
Anything related to being a pirate.
Every time he requested to connect to someone, they’d decline it.
Nobody on the seas or land wanted to be associated with George professionally.
He tried to join a few groups, but the moderators refused to accept his requests.
George even tried LinkedIn Pro, which told him that a lot of pirates were checking his profile every day.
A lot of big names on that list.
At least they knew his name.
George and the lottery
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d rather buy lottery tickets than loot and pillage.
And when he did loot and pillage, he’d use his shares of the booty to buy more lottery tickets.
He never won anything. Well, okay, a few bucks here and there.
And that one time that he won large fries at McDonalds instead of the small fries. That was something.
“The odds of you winning are astronomical,” said the captain. “Why do you play?”
“If I lose, I don’t die,” said George, loading the cannon as The British Fleet approached.
George the sinner
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He always tried to be good.
He went to school and he went to church.
George would go to Confession every day.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” said George.
“Yes, George, I now,” said Father Timothy. “I was the one you were sinning with.”
The Archbishop of Boston reassigned Father Timothy to another parish.
George, on the other hand, was accused of lying, and he spent years in therapy.
And then, one day, the therapist said:
“What if we pretend to be pirates?”
And, so, George did.
George and Atlantis
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d heard the legends of Atlantis, the island paradise that had sank beneath the waves.
“It’s still out there, son,” said a grizzled fisherman, pulling out a map. “I’m too old to seek it myself, but I could sell you this map.”
George bought the map, raised anchor, and sailed for Atlantis.
Except that he had the map upside-down, and ended up in the middle of Fenway Park in Boston.
Thankfully, the Red Sox were away in New York.
George found a bar, and watched the game on television.
Weekly Challenge #1006 – Keep Well
- Richard
- Lizzie
- Tom
- Lisa
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
LISA
True Love is Hard to Kill
Keepwell was nestled in the shadows of Dugyle Castle. Their visitors passed through our town so we thrived. Life was good. Until the falling sickness.
The drawbridge went up and nothing more was heard from the castle. We did the same: shut the gates and sat it out imposing no contact with the rest of the country.
Jack the butcher’s son however, continued to see his beau from a nearby village. They met secretly until she succumbed to the sickness. The rest is really too painful to recount but our numbers dwindled rapidly and the castle soon fell into ruin.
RICHARD
— Explosive Power —
“Keep well clear” said the guide, “they appear pretty lethargic but they can strike with explosive power.”
I figured he was being dramatic, hoping for a bigger tip.
Still, I wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks; I eyed the croc suspiciously. It appeared to be asleep, barely any sign of life. I reckoned I could outrun it, should it come to that.
I moved closer, crouching low to get the perfect shot.
“National Geographic, here I come, I said quietly, raising my camera.”
The attack was over in a flash, as was my life.
Still, it was an amazing photo.
SERENDIPIDY
I’m sorry to say, they don’t keep well.
It’s not long before they start to smell and go bad.
And they do tend to attract flies, which isn’t particularly pleasant.
It’s a shame really. I’d love to be able to put them on display to show to my visitors. After all, there’s really nothing like a set of decapitated human heads as a conversation starter at parties.
Sadly, until I can come up with a way to keep them fresh, that’s just not going to be possible.
So, until then…
I’ll just keep on eating them. They’re really rather tasty!
TOM
Transurethral Resection of the Prostate
Last week I got interpolated. In the biz it’s call a Terp or Turp. Sounds like a small Africa bird in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. Nup. Think dermel tunneling into a gland. I will fore-go the image of tubing and ballons for the fain of heart. What I can address is a new understanding of the pain chart. Like Spinal Tap is goes from 1 to 11. Well I thought it when from 1 to 11. I discovered a land that leave that silly 11 in the dust. Lot of screaming. Damn near a religious experience. If I don’t move ……
LIZZIE
I knew someone innocent would die. He wanted to clear his name and trampled all over anyone who stood in his way.
I wanted to ask him “why”. But I never did. He would’ve denied it. The images have been doctored. It wasn’t him on the video. “Can’t you see?” And no, I couldn’t. It was him, stealing from his best friend.
When he was arrested, I said “keep well”. He just looked at me. And I knew I’d have to run for my life.
Perhaps I should go to that place in the painting and hide in plain sight.
NORVAL JOE
Mandi shrugged away from the redhead. “You keep well, okay?” She headed to class.
The girl grabbed her by her shoulder. “If you want Billbert to keep well, you’ll tell me where he is.”
Intimidated by the girl’s size and overt beauty, Mandi gritted her teeth and hissed. “I don’t know where he is. When I got up this morning, he was gone.”
The girl frowned. “Listen. My name is Bobbi Yaan. My brother, Patrick, is a Black Knight, and he’s missing too. The Knights know Billbert has magic.”
Mandi interrupted Bobbi. “He doesn’t have magic. He has a superpower.”
PLANET Z
The first module we played was the keep on the borderlands, a castle at the edge of some caves, full of warring tribes of monsters and some kind of evil temple. At some point, our characters tried to rob the jewelry store and ended up getting killed by the castle guards. The new characters we rolled up for the next adventure were looked on with a bit more suspicion. So this time we ended up poisoning the well. After a few years, I stopped playing. I never got good at painting the miniatures, but I did like collecting fancy dice.
George and his grandmother
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Other pirates looted and plundered, while George spent a lot of time writing to his grandmother.
She’d send care packages, which contained cookies and brownies and socks and underwear.
His crewmates stole George’s socks, ran the underwear up the mast to fly with the Jolly Roger, and ate all of the cookies and brownies.
Clutching their stomachs, they vomited blood and died horrible, painful deaths.
George wrote his grandmother again to tell her that she really needs new glasses.
“Or put bigger labels on the vanilla and arsenic bottles.”
George sells treasure maps
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
All the other pirates looked for buried treasure with their treasure maps.
George got an idea and made really cool-looking treasure maps.
Then he’d sell them to unsuspecting pirates.
He made a lot of money this way.
Too much to carry around.
So, he put it in an old tea chest and buried it in his back yard.
And drew up a map to remind him where it was.
He sold that map to someone by accident.
Sure enough, the next morning, there was a hole in the yard.
George eats too much
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was a fierce competitive eater though.
Won a few championships at county fairs and restaurant openings.
Hot dogs, pizzas, chicken wings… if you could eat it, George ate it.
A lot of it. And he ate it quickly.
Afterwards, he’d go off to an alley and throw it all up, but he’d kept it down long enough to pick up the trophy and the prize money.
But George didn’t mind it all that much, considering how many times he’d been seasick during his days on the high seas.