OddThinking

My father, Joe, smoked cigarettes when he was younger, but he decided he wanted to give up. First, he migrated to small cigars, in the belief that they are easier to give up. Then he joined a group of friends in a bet.

They would all give up at the same time; the first person to start smoking would have to buy a bottle of scotch for each of the remaining four people. The next person to fall off the wagon would buy a bottle of scotch for each of the remaining three, and so on.

A short time later, he met with the rest of the group. They were all finding it too hard, and wanted to cancel the bet. Joe declined, but after some negotiations succumbed to accepting one bottle of scotch from the entire group, which he proceeded to share with them all.

He never smoked again.

At first, he received thankful comments – unlike most reformed smokers, he wasn’t anti-smoking and didn’t mind others smoking near him. Over time that changed. He became a rabid anti-smoker, and couldn’t stand the smell of smoke – or smokers.

Joe once yelled at my brother because my brother had let someone smoke in Joe’s car. My brother decried his innocence. Nobody had smoked in the car. No smokers had been in the car. All that happened is that my brother worked in area that allowed smoking! His jacket had picked up the stench of cigarettes, then he had driven in the car for an hour. The car seat had picked up enough of a stale cigarette smell to disturb Joe!

Joe once flew from Asia to Australia with a mild bout of bronchitis. This was before all flights to Australia were non-smoking, and, while he had a non-smoking seat, it was only one row forward from the smoking area. The smoke was intolerable on his already ragged throat. He begged to be moved, but there was no space.

He could only see one solution. Medicate himself with free alcohol.

Coming into Australia, he was suffering some of the side-effects of this medication. Put less delicately, he was as drunk as a newt.

In this state, he was required to fill in an Incoming Passenger Card. (A more modern example) Part of the card is a list of questions used by customs to declare any special items that you bring in. It is one of those forms that most people simply tick the No boxes all the way down. Bureaucracy, however, was not something that Joe submitted himself to lightly.

His eyes alighted on a question asking about whether he was bring any fauna into the country. Drawing on his knowledge of biology, he rationalised that he stomach was host to all sorts of weird bacteria and other fauna. He ticked the Yes box.

For that matter, adrenal glands (amongst others) produced steroids, so he ticked Yes to that box asking if he was importing any restricted substances.

His stomach still contained partly-digested airline food, so he ticked Yes to the box asking if he was bringing food into the country.

By that stage he was on a roll, and he ticked Yes to every box.

Somehow, they managed to get him from the plane to the customs official. The customs official looked at the card, and looked at Joe, and looked at the card, and looked at Joe. Then he pulled out a fresh card, and copied all of the contact information across. When he got to the boxes, the customs official ticked No to every one. He presented it to Joe.

“Would you like to be here all night answering questions, or would you like to sign this card and go home now?” he asked.

Joe meekly signed, defeated.