Fiction
Weird Science First/Personals
Satire Kitchen
Sinkronicities

The difficulty in writing a guide on How To Be A Pirate is that the first point would be:

do what you want and kill anyone who gets in your way, especially anyone foolish enough to think they can write a guide on doing what you want.


...So then I'd be dead, and you'd be a murderer who never got very far as a pirate.

Let's just assume that anyone who has the real potential for piracy will reach that place without assistance, or already has. The rest of you can settle for How To Pass As A Pirate.

Throw away the red bandana and the eye patch. Skip the Halloween theatrics. Some pirates might have had hooks and peglegs and eye patches, but those were the slow ones who got hit. You might notice that Captain Blood had no prosthetics, hardly a blemish anywhere
on him. That's because he could lead a boarding party into the middle of a battle and come out untouched. Smooth. Also notice that Mr Smee had no prosthetics. That's because he was smart enough to squat in a barrel when fights broke out, let those other idiots lose their body parts to bullets and blades.

Grow your hair out. Keep it secured behind your head with a little tar. Skip meals for several days. You should look as though you've been tugging ropes on 16 hour shifts among teams of men dying from the bloody grippe or from the wormy, tainted drinking water.

Even if you achieve the look of someone who's been at sea for months, you'll blow your cover as soon as you open your mouth. Better read up on Sailing Ships Terminology by U91902. [If you thought I was going to point you towards An Explanation of l33t Speak, then you're thinking of some other kind of pirates.]

So far, so good. You're able to stand there talking and looking and stinking like a sailor. Now do something piratical. There's only so long you can loiter about saying, 'I'm ever-so parched today, having just finished belaying the mains'l to the port-main-royal-brace-belaying-pin, trimming the spanker and twisting my ankle in a
futtock.' Is that all? Go on! Prove you're a pirate.

You could slay the person who demanded you prove you're a pirate, but don't pull out your cutlass just yet. Simply show what a successful pirate you are. After all, you know the secret of How To Find Gold Crowns as revealed
by U52547.

Next you could weave some yarns about Merpeople and Other Marine Legends. Make sure to explain them as events you witnessed in person.

Anyone still questioning your authenticity as a pirate after all that is practically begging to be dispatched. Run him through¹ and be done with it.

Although the unedited guide entries above should give you a solid grounding in faux piracy, there are a few choice tidbits on the subject in the Edited Guide. However, listing too many links to Edited Entries would be at odds with the mandate of CAC, so I'll make up for it by showing the links in really small print...

Scouring the Guide for golden driftwood, we'll continue to bring you CAC applauded entries in each issue of the h2g2POST. And we hope you'll join us!

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