I am a pirate!

Something made me realize, my life has not been shabby at all.

I was reading (or gulping, rather) Deidre Dare’s column, and the last phrase stuck out like a sound of thunder at Disneyland.

“The problem with a lot of coupes de champagne is that the next morning you’re terribly hung over, can’t do anything more productive than watch S&M internet porn, and, Cinderella-like, discover that you’ve lost one of your charming Jimmy Choo shoes somewhere between the Palais Royal and your flat. Which is why, when someone asked me this morning for directions in the Luxembourg Gardens, and added: “Your accent is interesting. Where do you live?” I replied in perfect French, “On the high seas off Nigeria. You see, I am a pirate.”

Subtract the porn and the lost shoes, add the fact that when I was telling Americans in the Midwest (where I started out as an immigrant) about Moscow, they didn’t think I was adventurous – they thought I was a mail-order bride……….and I totally get the excitement.

But what really excited me was the visual of telling strangers about living on high seas off Nigeria. I jumped on my chair and proclaimed: “I am doing it!”

But then I thought, how much different would it be from telling strangers that I spent a month in an American jail for alleged espionage and was nearly sold to a brothel in China? In terms of reaction, not very much.

At which point, I said to myself: “My life must be pretty good then!”

A glass of champagne to being a pirate, anyone?