My ship is docked in San Diego now, which means we're hooked-up to the pierside cable TV connection -- oh joy!
Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready for work, I watched something on the History Channel about 'modern day pirates.' It reminded me of my own pirate experience, a couple of years ago. We were transiting the Strait of Malacca northbound. Pirates there attack you a lot of times by coming up your stern, where the radar is the weakest (especially when they're in small, fast motor boats, which don't have much in the way of radar-reflective material). This is what happened to us; but luckily, our lookout spotted them when they were still a few miles away from us (and they weren't on radar!) So we sped up, and then rigged out some continuously running fire hoses on deck: they could see that anyone trying to grapple their way onboard would be washed back over the side, and broke-off their approach.
I told my girlfriend about this, and later on our conversation drifted to be about her place of work. Her supermarket chain has a nautical theme: they all wear Hawaiian shirts, and their manager is called the store's 'Captain,' the assistant manager is the 'First Mate,' and so on. I won't tell you the name of this chain, but I will say it isn't called "Trader Vic's".
Anyway, given the store's devotion to the shipboard experience, we thought it would be cool, when an employee spotted a shoplifter, if they would get on the PA and say: "Arghhhh, Mateys! Thar' be Pirates in aisle nine! Away the Master o' Arms! Catch the scurvy dog!"
Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready for work, I watched something on the History Channel about 'modern day pirates.' It reminded me of my own pirate experience, a couple of years ago. We were transiting the Strait of Malacca northbound. Pirates there attack you a lot of times by coming up your stern, where the radar is the weakest (especially when they're in small, fast motor boats, which don't have much in the way of radar-reflective material). This is what happened to us; but luckily, our lookout spotted them when they were still a few miles away from us (and they weren't on radar!) So we sped up, and then rigged out some continuously running fire hoses on deck: they could see that anyone trying to grapple their way onboard would be washed back over the side, and broke-off their approach.
I told my girlfriend about this, and later on our conversation drifted to be about her place of work. Her supermarket chain has a nautical theme: they all wear Hawaiian shirts, and their manager is called the store's 'Captain,' the assistant manager is the 'First Mate,' and so on. I won't tell you the name of this chain, but I will say it isn't called "Trader Vic's".
Anyway, given the store's devotion to the shipboard experience, we thought it would be cool, when an employee spotted a shoplifter, if they would get on the PA and say: "Arghhhh, Mateys! Thar' be Pirates in aisle nine! Away the Master o' Arms! Catch the scurvy dog!"
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