Yo ho ho

Aye matey.

My birthday fell not long ago. 'Tis not something to be celebrated so much as to be acknowledged. Another year. Another year filled with pillage and plunder. Aye, and I've even intimated such goings on in this blog during a riotous rampage on July 22. That day, we bought a bottle of rum. I'm pretty sure it was Admiral Nelson's Premium Spiced Rum. It does not surprise me, when faced with the knowledge we must buy something at a liquor store, that I would gravitate toward to grog.

What surprises me is that we didn't drink it. We certainly opened it, but I vaguely remember we couldn't find it an hour later. I suspect it got packed in a purloined box, and was not seen again.

Until my birthday.

My niece, Traci, and her significant other, Josh, traveled up from New Mexico and my parents, my sister, Nina and my brother-in-law, Laurent met me at a German restaurant halfway between our residences. Kelly, my belly-dancing daughter, met us there, too. During the meal, my niece plunked a huge birthday bag onto the table with a thud. Inside, a nice card from Traci and Josh wished me good fortune (in my old age). But all I really saw was the gobs of bubble wrap tied with a red ribbon.

I unwrapped it while we feasted on cheese fondue and German beer. It took a while because my parents had a lot of bubble wrap to get rid of, and when I finally came to the prize, my only thought was, "GROG". AHrrrrrrrr.

It was Nina whose jaw dropped. "It is open. You're giving her an open bottle of rum?"

Funny, I didn't see anything wrong with that. When we pillage a town, matey, we ain't caring if the grog done been opened. We'll takes it full or nearly empty, we will, and we'll be glad for having it. We got no powder-headed maggots under our wigs, worrying about what bilge-drinking scupperlout done took a swig afore us.

Ah, my parents knows me well, they do. For, indeed, the rum was from them.