As I sit here in my office staring at quad core computers, large LCD monitors, high end speakers, company laptops and friendly office white boards all I can think is, "I really want to steal something!" Must be September 19th again...Pirates are a free and happy bunch. Back in a time when men in powdered wigs, breeches, high heels and ruffled collars ruled the land what was a free thinker to do if you wanted to get away from it all?
Not working meant ruining up debts, and debtors prison in the eighteenth century was not a friendly sort of place. If you didn't live among the gentry you could always try your hand at manual labor, but the outlook offered a fairly diminishing return.
Well, you could pack your bags, move to Brazil and start up a coffee plantation! But that took a fair amount of money. You had to buy the land, buy the trees, buy the slaves. Spend, spend, spend. Plus, think of all the responsibility it requires to tend to an enterprise such as that? No...after a quick assessment the idea was really beginning to look a lot like work.
So? Ditch the hygiene and grab your cutlass.
A pirate ship offered something for nothing. Much like the modern welfare system only without the hassle of government forms, nagging dependents or pesky calls from social services inquiring into your supposed daily job hunt. No, piracy was real freedom.
No rules, no regulations, no disinfectants and a projected lifespan shorter than the average celebrity marriage. Plus if anyone wanted half of you booty you could just cut his throat and be on with it.
Sure there were some drawbacks. First you were on ship filled only with men which means you had to wait until you set into the slip before you could find someone to wash your duds or darn your socks. But at least you never had wipe your feet to enter a room, figure out which towels were for the guests, decipher complex emotional states or let your mates have 'just a sip' from your mead mug.
The good though, far out-weighed the bad. For as the stiffs on land, with their powdered wigs, were just a few coins richer for their days labor, you had accomplished so much more.While your dirty shipmates sing songs and eat roasted pig, you sit comfortably gulping down your rum and telling the bar wench of your day. A day ended by you burning that trim young sloops mast to a smoldering heap and then loading up all the heavy trunks into your waiting hold. Sure, you tell her, It was hard work relieving the passengers of all those shiny bits and expensive clothes before bidding them off this mortal coil with a lead ball from your blunderbuss but you managed to get through it. She exchanges you a refill for an ill gotten coin from your ever diminishing purse and you sit back and bask in the glow of your life choice.
Ah another workday is done and you're eager for the spray of salt air in your lungs, the smell of burning timbers at your nose and cries of those poor saps who will be supporting the next evenings purchases and slightly embellished stories ringing in your dirty pirate ears.
