Mom's Corner: Talk Like a Pirate Day

People who know me know that I take pirates seriously.

I have an entire shelf on my bookshelf with books about pirates, fictional and real. The “crazy thing I did for my 40^th birthday” last year was to spend the entire day creeping on the Jack Sparrow lookalike at Disney World.

My Twitter alter-ego is “PirateInsulter,” where I randomly post insults in Piratespeak. Therefore, Sept. 19 is kind of like my High Holy Holiday.

Sept. 19 is known as International Talk Like A Pirate Day. It’s mostly an internet thing; a couple of guys decided to put up a website and turn it into a movement, so, a movement, it is. I only found out about this last year, but late. I put up a blog post for Top Chef University done entirely in Piratespeak, vowing to try my best at spending the entire day next year actually talking like a pirate.

Well, that was last year. 

This year, I woke up on Sept. 19 committed to spending the entire day speaking as a pirate. The phone rang as I was on my way out the door to work. 

“Yarr,” I said.

It was someone from a political phone bank. My disgruntled husband changed his party registration earlier this year to independent, which means that now we get double the phone calls. It’s getting harder to tell who these folks represent, because they tell you the name of their PAC but not who they want you to vote for. I listened until it became evident that they were calling on behalf of the party I won’t vote for.

“I rather be walkin’ the plank than be votin’ fer that scalliwag,” I yowled.

It turns out that talking like a pirate on the phone with telemarketers is a pretty effective way to get them off the phone, fast. Sure, I could have just hung up. But it was a lot more fun to talk like a pirate because they weren’t sure what to do with me.

As I got to work, I put on my pirate hat (because you know I own one), and placed signs around my cubicle which read “Talk Like A Pirate Day: Now Entering Piratespeak Zone! YARR!” My co-workers handled this in a good-natured way, sometimes walking unnecessarily through my space just to say something pirate. 

By about 11 a.m., I realized I was in trouble. My son’s caseworker called. I could not in good faith talk like a pirate to an autism caseworker with the power to sic that scurvy Child Services on me, mateys. So, I had gotten up at 8 a.m., and my efforts to spend all day talking like a pirate had lasted exactly three hours.

I returned to Piratespeak after the phone call, but admittedly found it exhausting and found myself deliberately talking less. At 1:30 p.m., I was in trouble again when I ventured across the street to The Pretzel Shop for lunch. They don’t even sell fish and chips, so, I had to order in a less than piratey fashion.

At 3 p.m., I was on a conference call with a client, and asked to present some important facts on a spreadsheet we were discussing. It wasn’t even that I was afraid of the client’s humor level. I’m not sure there is any word in my piratical lexicon for “autosum.”

After work, I went to my night class. I informed the professor that it’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and, let him know that I’d be OK with him conducting class in Piratespeak. It didn’t fly, but the class was amused.

Today, I learned that while Talk Like A Pirate Day is something I very much agree with in theory, it’s pretty hard to do in practice. I was not able to maintain it for any longer than three hours at a stretch. I came home at the end of my day, dejected.

“Yarr, Mommy!” said my 7-year-old.

“Yarr,” I yawned.

“Did you talk like a pirate all day?” he asked.

“No,” I admitted. “I tried hard to, but, it just doesn’t work all the time.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “The teacher told me to stop after only half an hour.”