Piracy 101

     As the weight of adulthood crushed down on Will like a ten-ton bison sitting on his forehead, he had two thoughts: Unemployment is hard, and fuck, I wish I could smoke weed right now. The second was a byproduct of the first. While Will did reside in the enlightened part of the country that allowed him to smoke just about whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted; the workforce had its own agenda. Will was not against big corporate, or the industries in general, but he did spare a special vehemence for individuals that stopped him from smoking. 

     Most people in Will’s situation might have buckled down and grown up; they might have slogged through the world’s worst jobs until one day they came out on the other side a changed man with a past equally parts bland compliance and productivity. Will was not most men. For one he had somewhat of a god complex, and a penchant for musing about the potential monetary gains behind having super powers. Neither of these habits was of any use to him. In fact, they were more often than not hindrances, which contributed to the state of unemployment that made him want to smoke.

     It was a warm summer evening when Will sat on his porch, clutching a bottle of rum, because he couldn’t smoke of course, that he made a decision that would forever change him. No, he didn’t go back to school, hop on Linkedin, or even write the great American novel. Will took a final swig of rum, lit up the joint that had been burning a hole in his pocket, and said “Fuck it, I could be a pirate.”

1. The Problem with Piracy

Aside from the obvious risk to life, limb, and liberty, piracy posed several problems for Will. The first and most pressing was that he didn’t own, or have access to a ship. Any self-respecting pirate knew that they were nothing without a beautiful wooden woman to help them traverse the high seas.

Will sat on a local beach with six rolled joints from the local dispensary shoved in his pockets and a coffee stained yellow legal pad. In large block letters it read:

BARRIERS TO PIRACY:

1. Don’t own a boat
2. Arrest
3. Parrots are Expensive

Overall, it was a short list, and manageable. Will lived in a small town with easy access to a wide variety of what he thought would be unprotected watercraft. His knowledge of boat security was hearsay at best, but those were just details. A boat would be easy to find, and at that point, it was only a matter of theft. Will had seen enough television shows to understand that the actual thievery itself would be a simple affair, and take no more than five minutes.

The next item on Will’s list was not so easily dealt with. Arrest was a more than likely end for Will’s short-lived, but no doubt exciting career on the high seas. From Will’s perspective, the only threat for arrest would be the coastguard. “Bunch of lazy fucks in a dingy,” he muttered to a passing crab and lit up a joint. As he inhaled the thick smoke, he reflected on the refreshing liberty of his situation, and decided he’d rather not lose it.

He took the sharpie and underneath the ‘ARREST’ bullet-point wrote “Distract Coast Guard, Donuts?” Cops can be distracted by donuts. It seems only logical that it would work for the coastguard as well. Will took another drag, pleased with his problem solving abilities. It was ironic in his mind that the very skills that would make him a good pirate would also have made him an ideal candidate for any minimum wage job in the area. With the aging population of the coastal town, any young, able-bodied person would have had an easy time finding employment. Unfortunately, Will didn’t care much for hard labor or honest wages.

Will came to the third item on his list. “Parrots are expensive”. In history, parrots were not a requirement for piracy, but Will thought it would make a nice addition. He wasn’t willing to have scars, a peg leg, or an eye patch, and needed something to distinguish himself from common boat thieves. He would be more than just a delinquent; he was going to be a pirate, which carried with it a tone of charming swagger that intoxicated him.  

Under the third bullet, he wrote, “Rob pet store. Make sure to buy food.”