Pirates 101

Last Friday, Son decided it would be an excellent idea to wear his pirate costume to the library. Complete with sword, hat and eyepatch. I kid you not. I did not bring my camera because I didn't feel the need to draw more attention to what I was sure would be a four-year-old pirate "aaargh!"-ing his way around in public. In fact, I could have taken photos because he was blithely tripping amongst the stacks as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be in the library wearing this:


The children's section occupies the entire downstairs, and we usually look for books on a theme Son has chosen. In the past, we've done dinosaurs, diggers, tigers, rocket ships, and "bowmen" (knights). This week? I wish you could have seen him sitting in the adult-sized chair in front of the librarian's desk, wearing his outfit-- eye-patched flipped up for formality's sake, legs sticking straight out in front of him because the chair is so deep -- and politely requesting pirate books. The librarian was a pro; she did not even smirk. We came home with both fiction and non-fiction.

Guess what I learned? Out at sea, a pirate would periodically toss a piece of weighted wood overboard. Tied to the wood was a loooong piece of rope, with knots in it at regular intervals (47 feet 3 inches; thanks, Wikipedia). A second pirate would use a sand timer, so the two of them could accurately count how many knots slipped through Pirate A's fingers in 30 seconds, in order to calculate their speed in -- you guessed it, lovers of all things nautical -- knots. And that's why sailors the world over still calculate their speed in knots. Of course, the particular book that imparted this nugget seems to imply that pirates invented this labor-intensive speedometer, but I'm letting that bit of artistic license slide for now.

Guess what else I learned? Apparently kids are aware of the fact that they prefer to take in the identical bit of kid-media many many many times in a row. Enough times that if they ask for the Backyardigans' pirate episode once more, you might scratch your own eyes out even though you adore the Backyardigans. How do I know that kids know they have this preference for ceaseless repetition? This was our conversation during the towering-pile-of-pirate-books winnowing process:

Me: We have too many books here. You need to choose four to put back.

Son: We-ellll, how about you choose your favorites, and I choose mine. We each pick three.

Me: [figuring six is close enough to the five I'd been aiming for] Okay. I pick this, this, and this.

Son: I choose this, this, and this. But wait...what about this one and this one and... [etc. until all the original books are in our pile once again]

Me: We really can't take them all. Here. How about we put this one back? [indicating a very dull "I Spy" book with a pirate theme -- a book we'd just finished reading five minutes before, one whose pictures were so uninspiring that the spying felt like a chore]

Son: NO! I like that one.

Me: [still hoping to jettison the only boring book about pirates ever written] But we just read it right now. So maybe we can leave it at the library, and we'll take home some of these others that we haven't read.

Son: But I want that one.

Me: Honey, we need to put a few back, and we already read this one.

Son: [looking quizzically at me, as if I really don't get it] But I want to take it home. So you can read it to me a million times.

Of course.

We ended up with seven books. Including the deadly dull "I Spy" book. Because how could we live a whole week till the next library visit without at least one million readings of "I Spy" the pirate's parrot and the letter X on every single page? Aaarghh!

Since then, I have also learned that pirates often created individualized Jolly Rogers to fly on their ships. Guess what Son took for Show and Tell today? It's bright yellow, with a magenta grinning skull on it, and two crossed red swords where most folks would imagine the cross-bones. We mounted it on a small stick for a flagpole. And then Son demanded that I write his New Pirate Name on the back of the flag, so that everyone would know his New Pirate Name. He has christened himself:

Sir John Pirate Badguy Racecar

And if you try to shorten the name, say, to Sir John Pirate, you will be sternly reprimanded for not using the full moniker. So be forewarned: If Sir John Pirate Badguy Racecar comes to a town near you (you'll know him by his garish flag), do NOT attempt disrespectfully to shorten his name, and DO be prepared to read the most deadly dull pirate book ever written one million times. Unless, that is, you know how to build a canon. That's the project he announced to me he wants to try next because "every pirate ship needs a canon." Obviously.