Crap Mariner's 100 Word Stories

 As a personality in Second Life, Crap Mariner's not an easy one to label. Perhaps the best thing to call him is a man of many hats. As a self-described "troll with a heart," or "lolligagger" in reference to one former Linden's pet name to those never satisfied with Linden Lab, he's always taken the Lab to task with it's shortcomings. He's also taken on the role of volunteer, such as his helping out the Relay for Life, and this spring his series of "Prim Reaper" videos promoting the volunteer-led Second Life Ninth Birthday celebration. He's also been a comedian, such as under his alt of SecondLie.

And then there's his talent as a short story teller. But he does so with one self-imposed rule. His short stories come with a 100 word limit, no more or less. And so, Crap Mariner's "100 Word Stories" was born, and became a weekly event at his place in Clocktree Park in the Edloe sim, every Wednesday at 5PM SL time. One can tp directly into the treehouse, arrive via a portal door at the base of the tree, or climb up a rope to the place.

When I dropped by on Wednesday Sept 19, it was "Talk Like a Pirate Day." So it was no surprise the theme was pirates. Crap Mariner was in a pirate outfit, as was many of his listeners that night, and he spun a few tales about George the pirate, taking the sentence "George was a pirate, but he wasn't a very good pirate," and going from there. He would tell the stories in Voice, and once they were finished, the whole story would appear in type.

R. Crap Mariner [Crap Mariner]: George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.

Most pirates got their sea-legs in a few days, but George had never gotten used to the rocking and swaying of the boat, and the best place to find him was leaning over the rail, vomiting.

Even when the ship was docked. (He hadn’t gotten used to the swill served by the galley, either.)

So, he volunteered for land raids, and constantly asked the captain about a desk job.

“You know, with headquarters,” said George.

The captain smirked, and chained George into the crow’s nest for a week.



R. Crap Mariner [Crap Mariner]: George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.

All the other pirates had some sort of disfigurement, such as a pegleg, a hook hand, or an eyepatch.

George tried to wear a pegleg, but it’s much easier when you have an empty pant leg.

The same goes for hooks and empty shirtsleeves.

George flopped and stumbled around on the deck like a fish out of water, his peg and hook waving in the air helplessly, and the entire crew laughed.

The captain couldn’t bear to watch the spectacle, so he put on a second eyepatch and sighed.

While Crap Mariner spoke the story, the others in the room continued to chat, often joking. "Wait, there was a helmet incident?" "I know your head is very hard, but those helmets really are supposed to be one-smash-only." "REPLACE!!!" "What's all this s*** about helmets?" "let's take up a collection to replace Crap's helmet."

Eventually the stories about George ended, and other pirate stories followed.

September 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

All across the world, people say things like “Yarrrrr!” and “Avast, ye scurvy dogs!” and “Me hearties!” and silly pirate-speak phrases like that.

Especially to pirates they meet on that day.

Pirates don’t find this amusing.

It’s like walking up to someone from Australia and saying “Throw another shrimp on the Barbie!”

So when a pirate draws his cutlass and shouts “I’ll have ye guts fer garters!” the proper response is not to applaud at their impressive diction, but to run like hell.

Although, to be honest, pirates rarely wear garters.



The day before a pirate raid, you can go down to the beach and watch the men doing their pre-raid warm-up exercises and stretching.

It’s very important to limber up before shivering any timbers, keel-hauling, or walking the plank.

Nobody wants to be in the middle of a raid and then suddenly get a sprain or a charley-horse, dropping their cutlass from a twisted wrist.

And then there’s the basics: port, starboard, bow, stern.

No landlubber mistakes here, mateys.

Is that a stuffed parrot?

Argh. Go requisition a real one.

Either straighten up, boy, or we’re all in deep poopdeck.

The audience continued to listen and joke, often in piratespeak, "Yar!" And it wasn't long before the hour was up. Crap Mariner invited pointed to the pile of gold coins in front of him, and invited everyone to jump in. Several did. After some more jokes, eventually everyone began to go their own separate ways.

Once again, "100 Word Stores" is from 5 to 6 PM every Wednesday at Edlow (139, 123, 71).


Bixyl Shuftan