Thinking of adopting a pirate?

As I think everyone knows by now I recently adopted a Somali pirate for no real good reason other than I was bored. Seriously, if you think about it, what good is a pirate in a land locked area like Pittsburgh? Although, there was some interest by the local somewhat professional baseball team, ironically enough nicknamed the Pirates, but once they found out my real pirate both enjoyed raping, pillaging and murdering, they lost all interest in hiring him as a mascot.

So now it’s just me and Tim. To be clear, Tim is not the pirates real name, but out of respect to his family and the fact that I can’t for the life of me begin to spell his real name, I call him Tim.

I am neither a complainer or a democrat, so my tolerance for the great differences of other cultures is limited, to say the least, so when the giant FedEx box arrived a few weeks ago from Somali carrying Tim and his super cool pirate flag I was both excited and dismayed because I thought, “oh a pirate, how fun,” until I realized that a real life pirate is not only not a lot of fun, but is, in reality, a pain in the ass.

First off, Tim barely speaks English, or at least he pretends to not speak English, which is fine with me. That much became clear as I opened the box and he said, “gets me fuck out of here bloke.” I mean, seriously, that sort of language is really reserved for, oh I don’t know, a drunken flight attendant on a JetBlue red eye?
Anyway, the point was, I paid 35 bucks for my pirate and the least he could do was show up with a friendly attitude. That was what I thought the least he could do, but I was dead wrong.

Pirates don’t like to play catch. I guess that should go without saying, but it’s true. The first afternoon with our family, Tim and my oldest son Biff were out in the field playing what I thought was catch, until Biff came into the kitchen with a knife stuck in his shoulder claiming that Tim had stuck him and laughed until he gave up his wallet.

Pirates pee outside. I guess it should go without saying, but pirates are not really housebroken, and let your mind focus on that while I continue.

Finally, the return policy for unwanted pirates sucks, big time. First off, the phone calls to the Somali adopt-a-pirate gang almost always go unanswered and believe you me, customer service is the key to all good business nowadays. You want a happy customer, answer your damn phone. Even then, I am pretty sure that I would not want to keep Tim as my own pirate. If not for the stabbings, the thieving and the thefts, Tim is not a nice pirate.

Pirates spit and cuss. If you watch fun little pirate movies and think to yourself that you might want a pirate or two living in your home, think again. See, in most movies, you can not smell what the living conditions are like on those boats, or homes or wherever it is that the pirates are living. Now, after a week or two of having a pirate actually living with you, I can tell you that the only thing worse is having an ostrich family living in your master bedroom, which I am also trying to get rid of, but the own-an-ostrich hotline completely refuses to return my calls.