"International talk like a pirate day"?

Okay, so until this morning I had never heard of "International Talk Like a Pirate Day." Some of my children's teachers even dressed up for the occasion. Rebecca has one particular "crazy boy" in her class who knows pretty much everything about pirates and aspires to someday commandeer a ship and set out on the open seas. So Wikipedia defines it as "International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLAPD) is a parodic holiday invented in 1995 by John Baur (Ol' Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap'n Slappy), of Portland, Oregon, who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate.[1] For example, an observer of this holiday would greet friends not with "Hello," but with "Ahoy, me hearty!" The holiday, and its observance, springs from a romanticized view of the Golden Age of Piracy." Okay..... Anyway, so am I the only person clueless to this bizarre day? Is it really something we want our children to celebrate? I mean aren't pirates supposed to be bad role models, even scallywags? I mean Johnny Depp made a pretty cool pirate -funny, bizarre, and not bad looking either and then if you argue the fact that Orlando Bloom was a pirate- well, let's not start drooling here, but anyway, for the most part, pirates were bad guys. The bad guy image seems to have a lot of appeal to young boys and is a favorite Halloween costume pick. Well, shiver me timbers the kids sure think it's fun and it seems those experts in Australia (love you Mum) know how to celebrate it right - ""Die-hard" TLAPD fans calling themselves Ye Auld Australian Association of Rum Riddled Rapscallions – YAAARRR for short – will be gathering in Sydney tomorrow to embark on a campaign of "rum, mischief and public nuisance" to raise money for The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Groups of government workers in Canberra and Hobart will be selling eyepatches to raise money for the Fred Hollows Foundation, and Dr Greg Wheeler will be dressing and talking like a pirate to raise funds for the Children's Unit at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne." Some would argue they are reformed criminals (secret pirates) - like my Dad for one- but look how they turned what could be a holiday of drinking, stealing, and very unmoral behaviour into something good. That's what I like to see. And then when you think that "national cheeseburger day" was yesterday and the ever-popular "crush a can day" is coming up on the 27th - Avast matey, might as well put the Pirates of the Carribean DVD in and celebrate the darn day with the kids? whelps? what is the pirate word for children anyway?

Why does it take pirates so long to learn the alphabet?

Because they spend years at C!