Give Me an "Arr"

What a couple of weeks it has been! To jump right to the gory details, I'm no longer a nature documentary narrator, as I hoped to be last week. That was a little outlandish, I can now see. So I made the logical jump to pirate!

Logical though it may have been, I didn't see the wisdom of it and give up nature, no. I had to become the pariah of the countless Australian animal-taunters out there first, or actually I sat idly by and watched Camembert become their pariah. Camembert tried to convince them he was no threat to their livelihood, and in fact didn't even want to be a rugged outdoorsman, even after I tried so long to make him into one. But they wouldn't hear nothing of it. I think the Australians are naturally suspicious of the handicapped anyway, it probably didn't help his case. Camembert soon became the most hated man in Australia. And they even like Yahoo Serious down there.

One day Camembert and I had gone out monkey-hunting, even though he had actually asked to go to the Australian-equivalent of Wal-Mart, and they cornered us right out there in the open. Or perhaps they didn't corner us so much as challenge us, and I thought Camembert could put them in their place once and for all. He has pretty good upper body strength, that Camembert, and there were only four of them, with minimal weapons, so naturally I assumed the match was fairly even. But no luck.

They bagged Camembert, chair and all, and tossed him into the ocean, a lot of which surrounds Australia. I thought I might get off the hook easy, seeing as how they believed me some forgotten species of bald Koala bear, but they bagged me, too, me—Rokwell T. Finger—and threw me in after Camembert, shouting for him to "take this hideous thing with you." Apparently Australians have never heard how words hurt more than knives. Not that the knives didn't hurt, too.

We could have floated for days for all I know—I get sleepy washed adrift at sea. Camembert says it was about 40 minutes. Then the pirates found us.

That's right—pirates! Real true-to-life pirates. They didn't wear puffy shirts, fancy jackets, or eye patches, but one guy had real bad pink eye. As for dressing-style, they were much more of the shorts and polo shirt variety of pirates. For a pirate ship, it was surprisingly devoid of parrots, but they did have a dog named Fucker, with quite the uneasy stomach.

Neither were they very jolly Jolly Rogers. According to the head pirate, Kevin, they hadn't boat-jacked anybody in a number of months. He was even considering giving up the business and going back into telemarketing. In general they were all pretty gloomy and dispirited. What they really needed was a leader, a brand new captain with spit and vinegar, someone with the vision to make them successful. If you've read my column for any length of time I think you know where this is going.

Yes, it's the pirate's life for me. And Camembert, of course; I suppose I could let him off the hook for this one, given he doesn't quite have sea legs yet, but at this point it would shock him into a heart attack if I were to throw myself into severe danger and not bring him along. Besides, the married life was getting a little boring and Felchyana had locked me out of the house a month ago. I was getting tired having never consummated the marriage anyway.

To sum up, this may be the last Rok Finger column you receive for quite a while. We were fortunate enough to stop here in Singapore and find a fax machine, but Neil's got the caning tomorrow at two so we'll be out of here by four at the latest. Writing isn't the pirate's life, and that's what I do this week. Or now, I mean. Wish me luck, good people, for tomorrow this salty dog returns to the sea. Now I'm off to find a charitable local to blow the man down.

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