YARRRR MATEY! Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Good news, landlubbers. I be winning Sigur Ros tickets, and attendin’ their music show on Wednesday! Yo ho! I be writin’ up a review on Thursday, ‘n’ cut my throat if’n’ I don’t!

Today for the aforementioned Vocal Holiday, I be writin’ you a true story about me real life. Only I’ll be doin’ it in the speech of the Seven Seas! Ye better enjoy it, or it’s the plank you’ll be walkin!

The Story of Captain Schramm and the Black Cat!

Aye, lads. It was four days ago. I was sitting on the deck of the Marie Elena, playing my favorite pasttime. Why, it’s gin rummy, don’t you know, my scurvy rats.

All sudden like, there come from me port side, a cry like a banshee from the Arabian hell. I jumped up with a start, and pounded my peg leg out of my chambers.

It was me roommate. “Cap’n',” he cried. “Thar be a visitor on the back deck! It’s a witty cur!”

“A witty cur!” I exclaimed. “Great Jonas and the Whale! Ye mean it’s a little cat?”

“Aye, Cap’n',” said the roommate. “A black cat! On our back deck!”

Well, lads, your Cap’n’ knows what he likes, and he likes cats, as the banner of this very ship will show. So your faithful Cap’n’ steps his peg leg back out onto the wooden deck, and lo and behold, what is there but a little black cat. The kitty steps right up to me and wraps hisself around my legs, purring with joy.

I asked the roommate whose might it be, and he said he didn’t know. We though maybe it might belong to the landlubbers downstairs, but when we knocked on their door, they answered that the cat wasn’t theirs either. Well, lads, your handsome Cap’n’ wasn’t sure where the cat belonged, but it was very cute, and very happy hanging out with your Cap’n’.

Now, a little bit o’ intelligence about the Cap’n’s roommate. He ain’t much of a sailor– can’t have been in more than five or six ports of trade in his scurvy life. And he’s been told by the ship’s doctor (whoever that may be) that he be allergic to the more domestic of the beasts. That is, members of the housecat and canine family. So, although the suggestion was passed from your Cap’n’ that we let the cat stay on the ship, the roommate flatly refused, on accounta medical conditions. Arrrr matey, if’n’ ye ask me, medical conditions be a term thought up by those who been afraid o being keelhauled one too many times. But I be a considerate Captain, so I keep me opinions to me handsome self.

And so out it goes with the cat. I grabbed a bowl and milk and gave ‘em a meal before he go, and he licked it up with abandon. ‘E was a little thing, totally black, with the cutest green eyes, and little paws with claws intact. Arrrrr, mateys but that be a cute cat.

And so, milk finished, your faithful Cap’n’ turned the kitty out. I took him downstairs, opened the door and beckoned him leave the ship. He stayed for a bit– he enjoyed rubbing up against your Cap’n’s pegleg, and your Cap’n’ must admit he found it hard to stop petting the little swabber. But came the time he had to walk the plank, and so I picked him up and put him outside. He stopped there for another minute or so, and listened out into the darkness. If your Cap’n’ didn’t know better, he would think the little guy was kind of scared to go. It was dark in the night, and not a night to be made to walk the plank, mayhaps to end up in Davy Jones’ locker. But he could not be let back inside, on accounta the medical condition, so your Cap’n’ closed the door and returned upstairs.

The next day, I made me way down the stairs to take the trash out. Right before I made to open the door, I thought about what I would do if the kitty was still there. If he hadn’t left, if he hadn’t had anywhere to go the night before– if he was still outside, then I figures the roommate wouldn’t have any argument, that the cat would have to come in, that the little black kitty would have to stay here on the ship with the roommate and I.

Your Cap’n’ sighed, and opened the door.

The kitty was gone.

Your Cap’n’ tried not to look around for it as he threw the trash away. But he did, one more time, before closing the door and heading back upstairs. Arrrr mateys, but that cat was cute.