AnonymousCoworker

My birthday was last Wednesday, and it was a fairly crap birthday. After work I went home and painted a wall, mowed the lawn, put a second coat of paint on the wall, had a slice of ice-cream cake and got a cool shirt from ACWF’s mom, put up our headboard, and then went to bed.

This past Monday my brother made up for all of that.

He had his present planned for me for about a month. He switched the date around a few times, but in the end he settled on the 19th to take me on a pirate cruise (scroll down) around Baltimore. On Talk Like a Pirate Day, no less.

When I met them down at the harbor they gave me a puffy pirate shirt, a pirate sword, an eyepatch, a pirate hat, a belt, a satchel full of booty, and a pistol.

We boarded and went straight for the bar. Being a pirate is much more fun when you’ve got booze in you.

Then a swarm of “pirates” boarded the ship. In reality it was one group that regularly sails with the ship, and the other group were Ren Fest nerds in for the evening (it being Talk Like a Pirate Day). The two groups didn’t seem to have done any type of rehearsal, but once we were out in the harbor, they settled down and mingled. We spent a good portion of the voyage sharing jokes with a few of the Ren Fest pirates. All in all, it was a good time, and it awesomely made up for the mowing, and the painting, and the general non-celebration on my actual birthday.

Now what you’ve been waiting for. A picture of me dressed as a pirate.

clickificate to bigificate

When I was in high school, actually, when I was a senior in high school, I frequently took the liberty of excusing myself from classes and wandered the halls of the school looking for something to pass the time.

One of those days I walked past a nearly empty classroom and noticed my friend Travis. Travis, not being the type of person who can regulate his behavior in a way that allows him to fit in with the rest of society, called out the door, “Dude! C’mere.” Feeling my oats, and ready with a good excuse as to why I was wandering the hallways (um, because I, uh, have to go to my next class?) I ventured into the classroom and sat down in the desk next to Travis’.

“Mr. [myreallastname]! Always a pleasure to see you.”

My head whipped around and I saw my Algebra 2 instructor from the year prior. This could go one of two ways: Mr. Murphy would go apeshit on me because he’s the wrestling coach and I just wandered into his class, or Mr. Murphy would appreciate the humor in a student sneaking IN to a classroom.

I was betting on the latter because of two other things: Mr. Murphy was nicknamed “Head in a box” by my friends because he was sometimes so oblivious to his surroundings that he failed to break up a fight in his classroom, notice students getting up and leaving his classes, or see a stapler thrown from the back of his classroom fly over the heads of his students and strike the front of his desk at the head of the class. The other thing was: Mr. Murphy was not Mr. Working. Mr. Working was the football coach who taught anatomy, and who was famous for imparting the same piece of instruction to all his students, which was, “They call it the ‘taint’ ’cause it t’ain’t quite ass, and it t’ain’t quite pussy.” He was a real class act.

“I guess you really wanted to take the test we’re about to take?” Mr. Murphy asked me.

I replied affirmatively, and then asked what course he was teaching, hoping against all odds that I wasn’t in his Algebra 2 class.

“I’m administering a make-up test for Mr. Working’s anatomy class. These fellas* here missed the last exam because of the athletic awards ceremony yesterday.”

I was screwed. I knew about as much anatomy as I did Algebra. I asked what the particular topic was.

“Reproductive organs!” Mr. Murphy said with a surprising amount of glee in his voice.

I was suddenly very excited to take the test. I had recently misplaced the delicate flower of my youth and blossomed into a man, and in doing so, had done a great deal of “personal research” into the male and female anatomy. I was sure that I knew my stuff.

The test was administered, and I finished the male reproductive organs in a flash. A little seminal vesicle here, a little urethra there, rectum, prostate, testes- I was in the zone. I flipped the test over, and staring at me like photocopied goat skull was the female reproductive system. Previously foreign and abstract, the female reproductive system no longer seemed so strange. I started at the bottom and worked my way up and out. Outer labia, inner labia, clitoris, vagina, cervix, urethra, fallopian tubes… I finished the female anatomy almost as quickly as the male anatomy.

Sure of myself, and still feeling a bit bold from wandering into a classroom and getting away with it, I got up and handed the test in to Mr. Murphy.

He went over the test as I stood above him, his red pen poised in his hand, ready to make a mark at any of my mistakes. He flipped from the male side to the female side without making a mark.

“Let’s see how you do on this side,” he said as he bore down on the now properly labeled goat skull. His pen hovered, but never found its prey.

“Are you taking Anatomy 2 right now?” he asked me quietly so as not to disturb the other students.
“No.”
“But you took Anatomy last year?”
“Nope.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“I don’t know. General health classes over the years, I guess. Must’ve finally sunken in.”
“Well, I’m impressed.”
“Thanks.”

Then Mr. Murphy stood up and said to the class, “If your penis looks as good as [Myreallastname]’s, I’ll give you extra credit.”

*I went to an all-male Catholic high school.