Shiver Me Timbers

"Ahoy."

I mean, "Oy."

Saw the new Johnny Depp "Pirates" movie - whoo, stunk like a wet dog. I went with a friend who hadn't seen the first one and I kept hoping this would give him a taste of how much fun that was.

This one? Just awful. And long. Long and awful. Great special effects, but you need more than some soggy, slimy spooks to keep a flick afloat.

We popped into the theater after a day with friends of his in "the country." (I love that any place that's out of the city and has some lawn is "the country.") Anyway, we show up and there's just three other people; two waitresses who know my friend from their restaurant job, and the boyfriend of one of them. Both women were hammered and smoking like they were going to burn down "the country." With all their faux-sophistication and acid proclamations, I felt like I'd stumbled into a Dorothy Parker Convention.

And they talked. Endlessly. The cigarettes flew around their heads like mosquitos. The boyfriend sat there chewing his fingernails, shooting glances at his mate from beneath heavy eyelids. "Good luck to you, having to live with her," I thought.

After the initial Sally Bowles-ing, they came back to planet Earth and we had a fun afternoon. Of course, they only talked about their job, but that's restaurant folk. And while I got every chapter of their daily lives, down to their last tip, no one even asked what I did. I started thinking I should just stop talking and bite MY fingernails.

Our hostess was house-sitting an enormous mansion, whose occupants go to Maine for the summer. What a spread. The house was huge and had great potential to be a real Merchant-Ivory dream, but the decor looked like stuff you'd find at a swap meet. And tacky? I kept waiting for Dame Edna to descend the staircase.

There was a dumbwaiter and a panic room (yes) and a walk-in bar, which covered a multitude of sins. Mlle. House-sitter told us that there had been a mass-murderer roaming the woods last year, and one night she was coming home from a daytrip and saw cops and roadblocks and red lights flashing. They were zeroing in on the psycho and had him cornered. She told them she just wanted to get back to the house and get to bed, and was surprised when they didn't let her.

"Hello, paging Miss Nutso, party of one."

It was a real nice clambake, we're mighty glad we came, but ultimately it was a relief to shove off to the Caribbean. Little did we know...