The Best Nerdy Pirate Party Ever

Warning: This post is unnecessarily long. I mean, it's really long. And not all that interesting. But it is in honor of National Talk Like A Pirate Day and also in honor of me taking three days to write it and no way am I not posting something I wasted that much time on.

As I mentioned in an earlier post this week, the Captain and I were invited to a murder mystery party recently. I have never been to one, but I've always wanted to go. I liked to imagine that when I got the opportunity to attend one, it would be set in a grand old mansion and everyone would speak with an English accent and wear ball gowns and tuxedos and have masks. I have no idea why my murder mystery fantasy resembled a production of Phantom of the Opera. It just did, okay?

Several months ago, Captain Carl's brother, Mailman Mike, told me about a friend of his that throws a murder mystery party at least once a year. Let's call his friend Fiona...I have no idea why, just go with it. The Captain and I had met Fiona on a couple occasions and she seemed like a very nice lady. Weird, but nice. But then, most of Mike's friends are a little strange, on account of his Star Wars/Italian Snuff Films/Computer nerdiness. Add in Mike's girlfriend, let's call her Fairy, who is wild for comic books and alternate reality video games and you've got a recipe for...well...super dorks. Whenever we hang with Mike and Fairy, I spend most of the time looking back and forth between the three of them with a confused look on my face on account of me being too stupid to understand their jokes. Then I badger the Captain all the way home with questions like "Is she really that serious about a comic book?" and "What does GFFA stand for again?" and "Seriously, I don't see why it was so funny when I thought Mike meant God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit when he was talking about 'The Big Three'."

So anyway, I told Mike that I would love to come to the next murder mystery party. Imagine my excitement when I got an invitation in the mail a couple weeks ago from Fiona to that very thing! I was all jumpy and clappy and I couldn't RSVP fast enough. Another week goes by and we get a huge envelope in the mail from her. Inside are two sets of paper, bound with rubberbands with my name on one and the Captain's on the other. It was our character guide for the party. I shit you not, this thing was five pages long. Five! It listed all the characters who would be attending the party, as well as a couple pages about our characters. There was a whole page on costume suggestions. One of the words on mine was "corset". I pretty much decided right there that I would not be dressing up. First of all, I wore a corset once in my life and it was on my wedding day and it was really more like a girdle actually but I spent the whole not being able to sit down and breathe at the same time. Never again. Secondly, corsets are hot. It was August. In Texas. No, no, no and helllll no. Besides, Mike told me hardly anyone ever dresses up at her parties, so it was all good.

Here's the best part. This year's party was set on a pirate ship. Pirates, y'all! I'll admit, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a vampire theme, but I think pirates are a good consolation prize. Sadly, neither Captain Carl or I were pirate characters. Instead we were both "land lubbers". I have no idea what Fiona was thinking. Clearly, Captain Carl was born to be on a pirate ship. Hello?? CAPTAIN Carl??

So on the night of the party, the Captain throws together a costume out of some of his old clothes. He was going for what he envisioned a tavern owner in pirate days would wear, but to me he kind of looked like a deranged pilgrim. As for me? I put on an old pair of gauchos and a pirate-ish shirt (my character was kidnapped by the captain...so I figured I would probably be disguised as a deckhand or something. Oh shut up, I don't know!) and off we went.

Holy crap, y'all. The first thing I noticed when we walked into Fiona's house was the staggering amount of decorating she had done. There was a plank, there were pirate flags, there were ship sails taller than me, there was sand everywhere....and the Pirates of the Carribbean soundtrack playing in the background. The second thing I noticed was that I was the only one not wearing an elaborate costume. Every single person was dressed in full pirate gear. It was amazing. At first. But after we'd been there for awhile and I got to meet all the other party goers, I realized most of these people probably had at some point in their lives been members of the SCA or Amptgard and I was probably the only one in the room that had never been stuffed into their locker in high school.

So we played the game by searching for clues all over her house and I really wish we had remembered to bring a sex toy with us to hide in one of the rooms for someone else to find because hello? hilarious!. But we didn't, so the Captain and I searched for about a half hour and then proceeded to spend the rest of the time sitting on our asses watching everyone else frantically search for clues and laughing at how Mailman Mike's pirate accent got thicker with every beer he drank. Turned out one of the chicks was the murderer and her husband won the game by guessing she was the murderer, which I'm pretty sure meant they were cheating but whatevs. On our way out the door after the prizes were awarded, I subtly suggested to Fiona that maybe next time she could have a 70's themed party because I already have the costume for that and I look awesome in an afro.