I'm a Pi(r/l/)ote! Yaaaarrr!

I was invited to a costume party this weekend. Specifically a “P” party, where everyone had to dress up as something that started with the letter “P”. I learned later that this was basically an excuse for a guy with a really good pirate costume to get more mileage out of it. Incidentally, the general consensus was that with the fake moustache, he actually looked more like Freddy Mercury with an eye patch. Not a bad look actually. Could have been “Prince of Rock, 1979” or… “Partial to Men” or “…Poor boy, nobody loves me…He’s just a poor boy from a poor family..”

Ok. Now I’m stretching. Sorry.

Anyway… I was rather inspired by one of my students, who remarked to me… “Blent, I love Blad Pitt!” and decided that this glorious line deserved some costume-credit. (If you know much about Japanese, you will know that the difference between the /r/ and /l/ sounds are among the most difficult sounds to produce for Japanese speakers.)

So, I decided that it would be amusing for me to dress up as a Pi(/r/l/)ate, aka half Pirate and half Pilot. Not only would this basically save me too much investment in a wacky costume (since blue commercial pilot suits are remarkably similar to blue teacher suits), I rather thought it would be funny. I added a pair of pilot wings made out of a skull and cross bones, a bandana, a sash and a nice pair of tom cruisin’ aviators.

It was (funny... I think), and the party was good, but the most notable part of the trip was actually the train ride TO the party, courtesy of the last costume accessory: a small plastic sword. I realized while standing on the platform that the sword had a little speaker. After a bit of searching, I found a little tab and pulled it loose. Lo and behold, it made cheap plastic slashing sounds when you swung it! I would surely be an unstoppable force of cool at the party with my 300 yen sound effects!!!

Or so I thought, until I boarded the train and realized that the motion of the train as it sways around the tracks, stops and accelerates seems to be a close enough approximation of a slashing motion to set the thing a schwinging and ka-shinging like some sort of freak 80s cartoon about sword fighting.

Ok… no problem.. there has to be an off switch somewhere… ahh… no off switch…

Um…. There are about fifty salarymen and some Japanese girls staring at me, or as much as they can while jammed into the ten square metres on the car around me…

Ah… I’ll take out the batteries….that’ll stop it…ah…. Crap. Too bad I don’t have a freaking Phillips head screwdriver in my pocket… crap.


Maybe this little situation would best be presented in theatrical format:


Sword: schwingg…kachings…..schwing… ca-schiwnghshsssss… schwings….kaching…
Japanese Businesspeople: [laugh…laugh…chuckle…]
Sword: schwingg…kachings….. schwing…ca-schiwnghshsssss…schwings….kaching…
Japanese Businesspeople: …..glare…chuckle…..glare….]
Brent: sumi-masen…sumi-masen (excuse me! Excuse me!)
Sword: schwingg…kachings…..schwing… ca-schiwnghshsssss…schwings….kaching…
Japanese Businesspeople: [glare….GLARE….GLAREGLAREGLARE]
Brent: sumi-masen…sumi-masen (excuse me! Excuse me!)
Sword: schwingg…kachings…..schwing …caschiwnghsssss… schwings….kaching…
Japanese Businesspeople: [GLARE… mutter .. glareglare…MUTTER GRUMBLE GRUMBLE….]

And so on….. and so on… for, oh, about thirty minutes. Longest train ride in recent memory to be sure, and in the close running for the worst 300 yen ever spent.

woot.