The Intelligence Estimate

The other day at work someone read a story from CNN about pirates who tried to hijack a vessel off the coast of Africa. We all had a good laugh about pirates. We wondered if they had a skull and cross bones flag. We wondered if they sang sea shanties. We wondered if the captain was forced to wear a parrot wherever he went just so people knew he was a pirate. Then, I lowered the hammer: I had a pirate story.

Years ago I dated a girl whose father, Dave, was a college professor. Every year Dave and his wife Marcia would go on an educational cruise called Travelearn. The gist of it was that the ship would sail to very different habitats. While you were traveling you would learn about these habitats and then go put your knowledge to work when you arrived at the next port. Dave was one of the instructors and he took Marcia along because it was a cheap way for her to see the world...at least the parts of the world Dave could teach about anyway.

Well, it seems that the people who planned these trips had neglected to make a few payments on the boat so the owners dispatched some repo men to take over the ship. They decided the best place to do that was on the high seas. Somewhere between England and Iceland the ship got boarded and taken over by these pirates who planned to return the boat to its port of origin: Russia. Long story short, after some tense negotiations the pirates made an unscheduled stop in Ireland to drop off the passengers and everyone arrived back home safely.

But the best part about this story is that for the next few weeks I knew that no matter what story anyone came to me with, I could top them.

"Oh, your girlfriend left you did she? Took your car? Burned down your house? WELL I GOT PIRATES! Check mate!