Seventy-eight pirates, including one pre-op transvestite, sat in the box seats at the bus stop outside the Wintergreen, an empty pub so subarctic it could mummify an atomic bomb. They didn't know where to go; they had planned to stay all night at the pub but when the bartender saw seventy-eight pirates walk in she decided it was closing time.  Now they were discussing amongst themselves the most appropriate course of action.  The pre-op transvestive thought that they should stay where they were - how often was it you found box seats at a bus stop?  Of course, that was to be expected outside a place with a reputation like the Wintergreen.

Some of the pirates wanted to just give up, but finally they agreed to stay.  Not for the box seats, but because they thought if they stayed long enough the pub would open up again.  They had come all this way for the pub; it was the social hotspot of the cosmos, the only place that didn't remind anyone of anything else.  It was even friendly to pirates, although apparently not seventy-eight of them.  They did look a bit dangerous, they admitted.  They were after all not there with entirely peaceful intentions, they agreed.  The bartender couldn't really be blamed for throwing them out, they surmised.

They were there to put a rest to a rumor.  Unlike most pubs, the Wintergreen was quiet.  It was said that you literally could not speak at an irritating volume inside the Wintergreen.  The atmosphere simply would not allow it.  You could do pretty much anything else in there - you could brawl, dance, pick up women, pick up men, get drunk, et cetera - but you couldn't be loud.  There was not a soul on earth who could honestly say they didn't like the Wintergreen because it was too loud.

The pirates felt that, being pirates, they could raise a ruckus anywhere on earth.  It was an affront to their pirate-esque honor to say they couldn't be obnoxiously loud.  So they had traveled all this way, first by ship and then by bus, to prove that they could walk into the Wintergreen and start blasting people's eardrums with their boisterous conversing.  They hadn't reckoned on being kicked out before they even had the chance.

Suddenly, one of the post-op transvestites amongst them had an idea.  They were pirates, after all; why were they abiding the law and not just breaking in?  The other pirates agreed, so they kicked in the door and stole some rum and proceeded to have themselves a subarctically good time.  With an arrr! and a shiver me timbers and a good luck with your operation next week, they proceeded to rattle the windows of the empty pub with their noise (although of course with seventy-eight pirates in it the pub wasn't empty anymore).  When they realized that they were doing it - they were being loud in the Wintergreen! - their enthusiasm raised the volume even higher.  They never would have noticed the bartender walk in if not for one appalling fact: the moment she came through the door, their voices dropped to a pleasant level.

That's when they remembered - seventy-eight loud pirates are only obnoxious if there's somebody around to be bothered by it.  They hadn't disproved the rumor at all.

So the seventy-eight mortified pirates went back outside and waited in the box seats for the next bus that could bring them to the seashore.