The History of the Cabin Boy....

If there's one question I get as often as, "What's a fisk?" that question would be, "What's a Cabin Boy?" So many people have asked me that, I can't even tell you a specific name of a person who's asked. That's actually a bit of an exaggeration, I am, however, being extremely proactive and avoiding the flood of questions by telling the story here...

Before we became co-life coaches, Michael TheWise and I were pirate co-captains of a galleon. Despite our usually contradictory commands and practical jokes we played on the crew, we were quite successful pirates ruling the seas. Known well in all of the ports as having the highest approval ratings of any pirate captains among their crews. In fact many of the principles we applied as co-captains are what have given us our success as co-life coaches today. Avast! I be steerin' this tale off course matey!

So there we were, 16 years ago (yes all you math-y people, we were teenage pirate co-captains...iff'n you didn't think you were gettin' a tall tale, you were sorely mistaken), sailing on the smoothest seas we'd ever seen. 12 miles from port we were, as the crow flies, when out of the southwest a squall picked up! I said to Michael TheWise, "Arrgh, the seas be a bit rocky! A tempest be a brewin'! We'll be lucky to get out of this one with our grog." That gave Michael an idea that if we drank all of our grog, we wouldn't lose it. This was also the birth of the term "brainstorm." We shouted orders to the crew to keep the galleon afloat through the storm. When questioned on how exactly, we gave them a blank flip chart and scented markers and instructed them to use the synergies that we'd gained from our last team building excercise. Then we went below deck and started to safely stow (aka consume) all of the grog. For three days, we were tossed about on the sea, when we realized we'd run out of grog. Fortune smiled upon us when we found a dusty old bottle of Creme De Noya (an almond liquor) hidden away in the galley. We also found a bottle of carbonated citrus juice. We soon discovered the two of these tasted best mixed together. It was on this day of fortune, when a cabin boy came below deck to tell us the storm had passed and we were docked in the port, not a scratch on the galleon and no souls lost. To celebrate, we promised the cabin boy we'd buy him a drink at the first pub we came to. For 16 years, we never found another bottle of Creme De Noya to recreate our drink of good fortune. To keep the cabin boy from starting a mutiny among the crew, we promised him we'd name the drink after him if ever we came across another bottle. We were surprised that this appeased him.

This past Saturday night, Michael TheWise and I walked into the Seahorse Inn, realizing that it was 16 years to the day of that storm. Behind the bar, we spotted that familiar dusty bottle, with the paper seal peeling up as the aged adhesive was giving way. "Ahoy!" we said to the barkeep, "bring us that bottle, some Squirt and a couple of glasses! We'll drink to the Cabin Boy!" Before long we were drinking Cabin Boys with our mateys and tellin' stories of the storm that couldn't sink the pirate galleon Saint Lucifer (Saint Lucifer is a registered Trademark of Michael TheWise, Inc. and may not be used without express written permission from Michael).

And that is the story behind the Cabin Boy.