Lots of wenches is what I need...

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I was but just a lad when I joined the crew of hardy sailors and salty veterans alike, walking up the plank to the deck, grasping the lead rope with a grip I hoped none could see. The few treasures I had accumulated over my short lifetime shifted in the burlap sack that swung against my back, familiar bumps of leather gloves and extra boots drummed against my back. I reached the top and found myself in front of a giant of a man, surrounded by other long, weathered faces. The giant's finger pointed towards the rear of the ship. His smile pointed deep into the center of my being. It was much different that the smiles that sprouted on the faces of the other deckhands. Their crooked grins chased me to the back of the quarter deck where I found Captain Pennysworth smoking a long, curled pipe.

"What's such a baby fresh boy doing on a man's rig?" he asked me.
"Come to work for you, Captain. My mother said she sent you a letter of request."
"So," he said, turning his deep, unconcerned eyes to me, "we have a mother's milk thief on-board?"
"In so many words, yes Captain," I replied, adjusting the pack over my shoulder.
"In so many words..." Pennysworth repeated, turning back to supervising the strolling parade of petticoats passing along the dockside. "Go find Marmoth, you'll recognize him easily enough, and keep in mind there's no teat on board"
"Yes, Captain."

I found the dark skinned giant again, assuming correctly that among a crew of battered, gnarled figures that the one who stood at least a foot taller than the average man would be someone I would recognize easy.

I was showed my quarters, a rope hammock atop two others, in a long hold room filled with a licorice stench and hundreds of other hammocks. Privacy was not a luxury for seafarers back then, nor is it to this day.

I was to work, to cut my teeth on the rigging lines and learn a trade so I could send some reimbursement back home to my mother for all her years weaning and molding me. And did I ever learn to do some cutting under the swift guidance of Pennysworth. More of throats and burial lines than of teeth and umbilical cords.

I would hate to think that mother knew exactly what import/export business her old friend Pennysworth was in charge of.

Import the gold, export the bodies.

Import the jewelry, export the bodies.

Import the ship, export the bodies.

We earned quite a fleet, and we suffered quite a few casualties.

So that's the story, how it started at least, of how my own mother shanghaied me into the Federation of Pirates.

May the Sanctifier bless her immortal soul.