George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
This didn’t matter to the production assistant who was rounding up extras for the latest Disney pirate movie.
“Who wants twenty dollars a day?” he shouted. “And a hot lunch, too!”
George and his shipmates waved their cutlasses around, growling and scowling, doing whatever the director told them to do.
“CUT!” shouted the director, and he walked up to George. “This one’s playing Angry Birds on his phone.”
So, George was fired from the movie.
Which was a good thing. Everyone else got food poisoning from the catered lunch.
George the poet
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He wasn’t a very good poet either.
He tried to write a poem about pirates,
But nothing rhymes well with pirate.
Well, maybe admire it. And retire it.
“What about other languages?” said the captain. “Spanish for pirate is pirata. Lots of Spanish words rhyme with it.”
“I don’t know Spanish,” said George.
“In French, pirate is… pirate,” said the captain. “But I’m sure there’s lots of French words that rhyme with it.”
“I don’t know French, either,” said George.
Nobody told George that poetry doesn’t have to rhyme.
George the careful
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Other pirates would drink all night, and then wreck their rowboats on the way back to the ship.
George usually ended up as a designated rower, or he’d call an Uber rowboat, even though he never drank excessively like others did.
His shipmates mocked him for his cautiousness.
“You’re a pirate!” they shouted. “You’re supposed to be drunk and careless!”
George stuck to his routine, and he got back to the ship safely.
Just in time to throw life preservers out to his reckless shipmates, thrashing in the water.
George and the zoo
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The captain quickly realized that George wasn’t very good at sailing, pillaging, and fighting.
So he made George the Morale Officer.
George spent his time making fresh lemonade for his mateys, asking them how they were feeling, and arranging activities such as Game Night.
A trip to the zoo, however, turned out disastrously.
The pirates ransacked the zoo, cooking and eating the various endangered animals housed there.
They woke up from their drunken stupors, locked in the gorilla cages.
George crossed out “Gorillas” from the sign and wrote “Pirates.”
George the online pariah
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he answers pirate-related questions on Quora and Yahoo Answers, his posts are vague and confusing.
And people downvote him on Reddit all of the time.
The editors of WikiPedia routinely roll back his updates and changes.
And I’ve yet to see an instructional video of his on YouTube that hasn’t been a magnet for thumbs down and nasty comments.
George mostly stays offline these days, communicating with family through a email and a private Facebook profile.
He flings another bird in Angry Birds and watches the structures collapse.
George and Drake’s equation
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He wasted a lot of time on things like Fermi’s Paradox.
“If there’s intelligent life in the universe, where is it?” asked George.
He drew up Drake’s Equation on a chalkboard and played with the numbers.
His conclusions were grim.
“By my calculations, there should be absolutely no intelligent life in the universe.”
“That’s nice,” said the captain. “But if you haven’t noticed, we’re trying to take over a Spanish galleon. Mind picking up a cutlass and helping?”
George picked up his cutlass and lowered the “civilization survivability” variable.
Weekly Challenge #915 – Detail
RICHARD
An Eye For Detail
Apparently, I have an eye for detail.
It’s both a blessing and a curse: Colleagues are always grateful when I spot their errors, particularly when it comes to reviewing important reports, checking figures on spreadsheets or the content of presentations.
Then again, it can be a pain in the butt constantly getting pestered by other people asking me to sense check their work.
Some days, it seems all I’m doing is sorting out other people’s mistakes, which means my own work is always rushed, and I rarely have time to do it properly.
Tha’ts whu its alwtys full o mistkes.!
LIZZIE
The doors to the art exhibition opened and a flood of enthusiastic visitors roamed the room. One piece in particular caught everyone’s attention. “The detail is remarkable,” they said. “Art is a remarkable… thing, isn’t it?” And someone replied “Yes, it is, remarkable!” People stared at three copper panels, a nose and two eyes, gigantic and kind of lopsided. “Just remarkable!” And this continued for hours, the word remarkable passing on from visitor to visitor like the plague. Suddenly, the eyes bulged and the nose sneezed on the stunned visitors who quickly decided that art wasn’t that remarkable after all.
SERENDIPIDY
You’ve heard the expression ‘the devil’s in the detail’, but I guess you’ve always taken it to be just an idiom.
Not so. If you look closely enough you’ll find that, hidden within the detail, the devil is indeed lurking and, what’s more, he’s looking closely at you too.
Wherever there’s complexity and confusion, he’s there, and the closer you look, the more absorbed you become, the closer he gets to you and the more absorbed into your life he becomes.
Until, finally, without even knowing it, you’ve become the devil…
And you’re screwing up the detail for everyone else!
LISA
The Search
The wall is full of more faces since you were last here. Fresh faces of women in their late teens and early twenties with the whole of their life stretching before them.
This is no casting couch. This is not the hunt for the star of a West End Production. We’re deep in the East End looking for their abductor, perhaps their killer, the reason why their loved ones haven’t seen them recently.
We’re convinced they’re all connected. And just need one tiny little detail, a miniscule clue that helps us link and ultimately find them.
It’s not looking promising.
NORVAL JOE
Because his vision had gone completely and his hearing was reduced, Billbert could only listen as Linoliumanda explained in detail how she had not followed anyone and the root of their problems was actually Sabrina.
All the while, Mr. Withybottom kept shouting, “Linny, get back in the car.”
Billbert sat on the curb.
Sabrina asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
Billbert sighed. “I can’t see anything.”
Sabrina scoffed. “You shouldn’t have left out that detail. It’s a classic Black Knight move.”
She pulled out her phone. “I’m calling my grandmother for help. Linnyninny, why don’t you listen to daddy and go?”
TOM
No Way Out
It was not so much Timmy was stupid as he was missing one important detail. Without it one would just wander down blind alleys. The missing detail was in plain sight. The man in the café saw to that. The man in the café was placed between a rock and hard place to kept Timmy in play in spite of those who were hell been to tube his career in the eyes of the high council and the elliptical reasoning of the protractor’s guild. The detail was flower in the vase: Semper Augustus. Timmy touched a petal absently. So close.
PLANET Z
I think the last time I played soccer was for the residential college’s team, where I was used as a scrub placeholder whenever a starter needed a minute or two on the sideline to catch his breath.
Another player took me out from behind, and I landed on my head.
I got up and ran back into play, yelling like a maniac… after being knocked out cold for two minutes.
Twelve men on the field. My last-ever yellow card.
And a Miller Lite in a bloody towel held to my forehead as I stumbled laughing to the First Aid Center.
George and the black skull
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Certainly not good enough for The League of The Black Skull.
You’ve never heard of The League of The Black Skull?
Well, that’s because George made it up.
George was always telling his crewmates about how he was being recruited for the secretive League of The Black Skull.
“Never heard of it,” they said.
“That’s because they’re so secretive,” said George.
“Well, if you’re talking about it, and they’re secretive, they probably won’t recruit you,” said the captain.
George slumped and sighed.
The captain fingered his Black Skull ring.
George and the doctor
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
“Open your eyes, George, said a voice.
George opened his eyes, and he saw a doctor’s office.
“Why are you here?” asked the doctor.
“To make me a better pirate,” said George.
“Well, I’m here to make you better,” said the doctor. “But not a pirate.”
“I’M A PIRATE!” shouted George.
George felt strong hands hold him, and a needle slide in his arm.
His shouting became a whisper.
“I’m a pirate… I’m a pirate…”
He felt calm, like a ship on the water.
And he was a pirate.
George the Facebook pariah
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
All the other pirates didn’t think much of George.
None of them were his Facebook friends.
He’d send friend requests out, but nobody accepted them.
They didn’t let him into the ship’s private group or let him post on the public page.
After a while, George gave up trying.
He became less enthusiastic about being a pirate.
He growled and scowled at his crewmates, sneaking more than his share of treasure.
And he occasionally treated their captives in a cruel manner.
“There’s hope for him yet,” said the captain.