I have a 17 year-old son. Funny thing about 17 year-olds is that they typically aren't known as stellar conversationalists! While my son can be a very well spoken young man, he is no exception.
"Hey Dad," he said to me one morning. "If you were a pirate, what would your pirate name be? What would be the name of your ship? What animal would you have? What appendage would you lose and how would you replace it?"
Being the awesome father I am, I indulged his 17 year-old nuttiness. That's where I went wrong.
My original pirate name was simply Arrrrrrr! After he pointed out that I would be called Captain Constipation, I changed my name to Captain Blackheart because I felt it sounded intimidating.
While I don't remember my ship's name, I do remember my pirate animal being a parrot that would say, "Blackheart's gonna kill ya dead! Squawk!"
After some ridicule from the 17 year-old contingency in my household, I changed my pirate animal to a lemur. A really creepy lemur with big, haunting eyes.
We started talking at length about our crews. My crew, I pointed out to him, would be a deadly force of confident pirates since I would teach them to read, write and fend for themselves out in the world! I explained that originally, pirates were probably at-risk youth who needed to make a way for themselves. I would provide them that way.
The appendage I would choose to lose would be a pinky. Why? Simply because my guns would have to be custom made and no one who had pinkies would be able to accurately shoot them. If someone got my guns, I would have a good chance of survival!
"What the heck, dad," my son said, laughing. "You would be Captain Constipation! Your ship's name would be the Redundancy! Your pirate animal is nocturnal! You're getting specialty guns knowing you're going to lose them in battle and be shot at! And, worst of all, you're an outreach program for wayward youth!
"Then what? Are you going to get them matching t-shirts? Going to have bonding campfire moments with them?"
After his not-so-brief laughter, he proceeded to tell me what a horrible pirate I would be.
"By the way, dad," he said. "I'm out of gas. Can I have $20?"
"What the heck, dad," my son said, laughing. "You would be Captain Constipation! Your ship's name would be the Redundancy! Your pirate animal is nocturnal! You're getting specialty guns knowing you're going to lose them in battle and be shot at! And, worst of all, you're an outreach program for wayward youth!
"Then what? Are you going to get them matching t-shirts? Going to have bonding campfire moments with them?"
After his not-so-brief laughter, he proceeded to tell me what a horrible pirate I would be.
"By the way, dad," he said. "I'm out of gas. Can I have $20?"
No comments:
Post a Comment