Japanse New-Girl Monkey Network
When You're a Professional Pirate
Some say that pirates steal and should be feared and hated
I say we're victims of bad press it's all exaggerated
We'd never stab you in the back, we'd never lie or cheat
We're just about the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet
When I was about five or six years old, one of my most favorite songs was the classic and colorful chanty, "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?" To my dad's great discomfort, my favorite verse of that was "Shave his belly with a rusty razor." I sang that part of the song with particular gusto.
It's easy to understand my relish of sea-going drunken shennanigans when I basically grew up on a sailboat in the midst of, well, sea-going drunken shennanigans. So it's of little surprise that my favorite ride at Disney Land became "The Pirates of the Caribbean."
Last night, of course, being the eve of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Mr Wiggins tolerantly allowed me to drag him off to see the wacky and somewhat campy Captain Jack Sparrow in The Curse of the Black Pearl.
There were sword fights, and swinging from ropes, and bottles of rum, and undead accursed pirate skeletons in the moonlight, and wenches, and sharks, and a talking parrot. It was so cool. So I've decided: I'm going to be a pirate when I grow up.
Of course, I'm going to be a pirate with a satellite Internet connection, so I can check my email when I'm on the high seas. But I'll have scored enough loot and booty to be able to afford such an expensive commodity. And I may have to implement a Wench's Equal Rights Policy. And I'm not talking about everyone getting equal rights to the wench.
But I'd still be a hardcore pirate. I don't know how to use a sword or a pistol, but I'm a quick learner. And since I grew up on a sailboat, I know my port from my starboard and I can certainly find my own stern with one or both hands. I could live without the scurvy, though. Or the syphilis.
At the end of my long and bloodthirsty carreer, I'd buy myself a nice island in the South Pacific (I know, not the Caribbean, but I just can't see myself settling down in that other ocean) and find myself a successor or replacement not unlike the Dread Pirate Roberts (most likely I'll kill him in the morning). I'd settle into a life where large tortoises deliver me icy cold piña coladas while I lounge in a hammock on the beach, and Mr Wiggins applies sun block to me so I don't get skin cancer. We'd say things like, "Arghh!" and go for swims in the crystal blue water.
If you'd like to apply to be part of my dastardly pirate crew, just send me an email explaining your pirate qualifications, and drink up me 'earties, yo ho!
And watch out for monkeys.
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