Argh, Matey!

Did you ever wonder what you would have been like during a different time period? I do. Sometimes I think about what I would have been like as me, but 100 or 200 years ago. Even up to 500 years ago (LOVED THE DRESSES). I'm not so sure how I would have felt about corsets, though. I don't relish the idea of my chin resting on my boobs, or never being able to breathe or sit easily.

I would have had distinct disadvantages as a woman before Modern Times. I would have been forced to allow my brain to atrophy in favor of squirting out brats during my reproductive years.

I love to read, but educating women back in the day, depending on class, was considered a waste of time. (My father once thought it would be a waste to send me to college being that I was a girl. This was loooooong ago. He was of the opinion that sending me to college would have been pointless since I would just get married and have babies anyway. He obviously had a change of heart by the time I went and got a film degree worth $130k. Imagine! College! A waste! I showed him!!!)

I'm not saying I would have preferred to have been a man back then. I just think I would have liked to have been a woman with more freedom. This would seriously limit my lifestyle options. I could 1.) marry someone (probably not of my choosing) and bear his children, living my life in what would essentially be indentured servitude with benefits for HIM, OR I could 2.) be a whore or 3.) BE A PIRATE.

The first option is not so appealing to my liberated mind, though I do fancy myself getting married and having babies someday. But that's a personal choice. I don't have to do that.

I don't think being a whore would have been as fun as Jamie Lynn Discala made it look in the Heidi Fleiss movie. Especially not before antibiotics, latex condoms and indoor plumbing. If anything, I think being a kept woman would have appealed to me more. I'd rather have been a mistress than a whore. Same difference, I know, but if I were "fortunate" enough to find a rich man who wanted to set me up in a house for his, er, exclusive, um...purpose, it would have been better than working for a Madam in some whorehouse conveniently located near the docks.

However, neither of these options are overly appealing, so I think being a pirate is the lesser of these three evils. PLUS, if Keira Knightley could do it, then I certainly could! Benefits include but would not be limited to:

• Getting to sail (I love boats!)
• Treasure!
• CANONS!
• A nice, deep tan
• Visiting exotic places and meeting foreign peoples!
• Pants!
• Getting to fight other pirates!
• People wouldn't look at me funny if I had a patch over my eye with the bad contact
• A boat full of men!
• Swinging from rigging when bored!
• Hammocks!
  

Disadvantages would include but are not limited to:

• Storms at sea. I don't get sea sick, but I have a REAL FEAR of large waves.
  
• A boat full of men who've been at sea a loooong time
• Having to fight other, scarier pirates
• Risk of scurvy
• Sun damage to skin and hair
• Not such a great swimmer, despite the Muppet's patient efforts in the Oakwoods pool. If we went down, I'd be screwed without a plank to clutch
• Speaking of planks, I'm pretty sure my saucy mouth would find me perched on it from time to time!
• No internet
• No MUSIC
• Weevils! EW!

Come to think of it, maybe I would have been better off as a whore than a pirate.

Sigh.