The thunder of Zeus be upon me this time, mortals.  I have failed you.  And I’m a big enough god to admit it. It is difficult for me to do this, but my sponsor, Demeter, has convinced me that the path to recovery begins with honesty.

And so I must confess that while the ships of men were engaged in a life-or-death struggle on my seas, I was nowhere to be found.  In fact, I only knew about it after the battle was done.  The fact is, mortals, that I, the great and terrible Poseidon, was on a bit of a bender.  I had drunk deep from the nectar of Bacchus and breathed heavily from the smoke of the oracle, and was pretty much out to lunch the whole time.

The divine truth is this: I have a problem.

O, cursed fate!  That this immortal life should yield such despair, such weakness!  I used to be bigger than Jesus.  I used to be Jesus.  Men worshipped me, prayed to me.  Lived and died at the mercy of my whims.  And then, in an eye-blink of eternity, it was all suddenly gone, leaving me holding the bag.  (I keep the fates in a bag since my divorce.)

Then, the millennia of waiting.  The silence, the banal, evil, crushing silence of mankind.  Some of we Olympians began to doubt the very existence of your souls, leaving a great void in our spiritual life.  For what meaning can there be to a world of clockmakers without clocks?  What is a god without his creations?  If men did not exist, it would become necessary to invent them.  And who wants to go through that whole business again?

But I chose faith.  I chose to see what was clear before my eyes, that your souls were indeed there—only astray.  Your prayers were not absent; they were simply directed elsewhere.  And with a little patience, a little grace, I might hear them again.

I wish I could say that my faith has been unwavering.  But I have been tested, mortals.  And your silence fills me with a sadness so deep I can only fill it with wine, and an anger so hot I can only cool it with bong water.  I am omnipotent, mortals, but I’m not perfect!

So I was not there to see your standoff.  But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  I was not called upon.  No prayers reached me.  Even in a crisis on the seas seen round the world, no one saw me, the one true god of the deep.

But I do not ask for your pity, mortals.  I still rule the oceans.  I am still master of all things wet.  I still carry your pitiful lives in my hands.  I am a great and terrible god, and you shall soon learn to worship me as of old!

In the meantime, though, my name is Poseidon, and I’m an addict.

I’m happier than a parrot in a cracker factory! Our great Navy SEALS rescued that ship’s captain – and killed three of the pirates, too! (Isn’t it amazing how they train those things to shoot guns? Must be some tasty sardines they give them for treats…)

The bad news is: one of the pirates is still alive. He’s coming back here to go on trial. That’s crazy!

I can tell you just what’ll happen. First, he’ll complain that the Navy didn’t read him his rights in whatever language they speak in Oongaboongaland. Then some famous lawyer will take his case and say the poor guy was driven to a life of crime because he came from a broken home – his father only had TWO wives!

The trial will cost us millions of dollars. Sure, the jury will find him guilty (unless he get’s O.J.’s) but so what? Spending your life in an American prison will seem like heaven or whatever those people believe in, compared to his old life in Oongaboongaland!

College kids will wear FREE THE PIRATE t-shirts with his face on it. Then he’ll get released on a technicality. Every university in America will want to make him a professor, like they did with all those hippie bombers.

Hollywood will make a movie about the pirate’s life, about how he was framed. Will Smith will play him cuz he’ll be good at waving the machine gun around, then looking all sad and misunderstood, reading books in his cell.

That pirate will end up with a cushier life than the ship’s captain! If that doesn’t make you yell “ARRRGGGHHHH!”, then your peg leg’s not screwed on straight!