Pirates!

Rating: PG-13 for a couple not-suitable-for-kids things.
Summary: A day trip to the Pirate Museum in Salem, MA yeilds some pretty interesting events.


We had been standing in line for the Pirate Museum for what seemed like an eternity. We thought that mid-day on a Friday would be perfect for seeing a museum. We actually sat down and figured out what day would yield the least amount of people at the museum.

However, we managed to miscalculate how many people would be in the museum to an intense proportion. There were hordes of school children on fieldtrips, chaperoned by entire families and uptight schoolteachers. Their little hands were everywhere, touching everything. Now, I was never exactly a big fan of children, and it was a known fact among my circle of acquaintances. Needless to say, I was a bit uncomfortable, and I think Colin picked up on it. As the thousandth child of the day ran by my legs, yelling, I started to crack.

“Hey,” he said smoothing my hair. “Don’t worry about it. I saw people more our age back a little bit. There is a class between us and them; we can just let them go ahead of us. It’ll be ok, I promise.” He smiled at me, and I tried to smile back.

“Yeah, ok.” When we got to the reception desk, Colin explained our “predicament”. The man nodded, and called the teacher over. He told them they were going in next, and she clapped her hands in joy. The class was ushered ahead, and we were pushed back with a group of older people.

“See? I told you that it would be ok,” he turned to face me, and put his hand on my cheek. He softly kissed me on the lips, and smiled. We waited in line for another thirty minutes before being let inside the first door. I couldn’t wait to get inside mainly because I hadn’t been inside since I was in the sixth grade. Colin, on the other hand, was absolutely beside himself. He had never heard of such a museum, and when I suggested coming all the way out here, to my home town, from Portland, he jumped at the idea. I was a little surprised that he would want to come all the way out here for a little day trip to a museum; however, it was about pirates, so in the end, it wasn’t such a shock.

I remembered every little thing that made you jump, and I was debating whether to tell Colin or not. Before I got to tell him about the first little scare, it happened. The main tour guide jumped out from behind something, and scared everyone in the room, including Colin a little. I put a hand on his shoulder, and he smiled at me.

“I wasn’t scared,” he whispered to me, smiling sheepishly. The guide went through his usual load of pirate jokes before leading us through the tour. The whole time, Coin was grinning like a fool, absolutely loving every little display and cheesy movement or pun made by the guide. We held hands all the while, and whenever he would get that distinctive twinkle in his eye, I couldn’t help but lovingly kiss him on the cheek. He would only take his eyes off the guide long enough to smile at me, then direct his gaze right back. I didn’t mind, though, I knew he was as happy as a kid in a candy store. So, I let him go on in his happy little world.

At the end of the tour, we all were led off to “the tunnels” of the museum: a maze, so to speak, of “underground tunnels” with Pirate mannequins around every corner, and a few scares. We decided to hold back to the end of the group so we could go through these tunnels at our own pace. Colin was pointing out everything that he knew the story of, and boy was it a lot. At one point, we had stopped so much that we were quite a ways behind the rest of the group. We had both apparently realized this at the same time, and turned to face each other. He reached up and put his hand behind my neck, then leaned in and kissed me. When he pulled away, I pulled him back. We stood there, in front of a cove filled with buried treasure, kissing for a little while. I let his hands wander around me; it was apparent that he was a b ut on the excited side due to all the pirates and nautical things. His hand had managed to make its way up the front of my shirt, on the inside, when we heard people coming.

“Colin, there are people coming,” I managed to say in between kisses. He didn’t seem to care. He started kissing my neck, and moved his hand to my back. I decided to give in, temporarily forgetting about the prospect of people coming down the tunnels. Suddenly, the sound of giggling children was heard right behind us. Colin stopped kissing me, and turned to the group of little kids. He took his hand out from under my shirt, and swiftly made a hook out of his fingers, shaking it in their faces.

“AARRRR!!!” he yelled at the children. They screamed, and ran away, down the tunnel. We laughed, and turned back to each other.

“You know,” I said, “where there are children, there are adults, and I really don’t think that they can be easily scared away by a finger ‘hook’ and a stream of ‘aarrrr’.” We laughed, and he nodded.

“Well, I guess we should get over to the gift shop then.” We held hands, walking through the rest of the tunnels. I some how managed to forget about the big surprise at the end, and Colin didn’t know that it even existed. So, when we reached the infamous treasure chest on the right, and it slammed closed by a skeleton pirate, we nearly wet ourselves.

“Why didn’t you tell me about that?!” he exclaimed once we were past it.

“I completely forgot it existed,” I said in between nervous chuckles. He eventually started laughing, too, as we reached the exit. The gift shop was relatively empty, filled with only the people who were on the tour the same time as us. We passed the cheesy plastic doubloons, the fake earrings, and the plastic rings to the real looking, and the real expensive, items. Colin and I both bought an eye patch and a big pirate hat. We put them on the instant they were purchased. I also bought a model pirate ship kit, and Colin a sword. We walked out of the store into the bright Salem sunlight, dressed as Pirates, and talking like them, too.

“What say yee,” Colin said, “to a bit of aye-ce cream?” I laughed, and then put on my meanest pirate face.

“Aye, we shall eat of the ice cream, then, and only then, shall we pillage, the house of seven gables!” we smiled in a pirate manner, took hands, and walked over to the ice cream stand across the way. I could only imagine what could happen inside the secret staircase in the house of seven gables.