Cigarettes and Alcohol

I used to smoke you will be appalled to hear.

Officially I ended it the second I decided to try and procreate about twelve years ago. Unofficially I ended it the time I decided to procreate a second time. All in all, I have not touched a cigarette for seven years.*

In between the birth of the first and second born of the Flying Martini children I lapsed slightly from time to time. But the cigarettes I smoked didn’t count, because I was in a foreign country when I smoked them.

As soon as we hit foreign soil Meeester and I would seek our favoured brand of local cigarettes, dependent on the country we were visiting, and arm ourselves up with a bunch of reasons why smoking on holiday was acceptable and permissable:

"It's immersing yourself in the local culture!"

"They are so cheap, it's like saving money!"

"This is the kind of country that if you don't smoke they think you are being rude. When in Rome...!"

I discovered that others have such smoking exemption excuses. For me, it was only “Smoking doesn’t count if you’re on holiday” but recently I have heard a few other choice ones from correspondents and friends of The Misssives.

Situations or places where smoking doesn’t count are:

• If you’re in the car
• If you’re trying to bond with new workmates in the smoking corner of the car park
• At parties
• If you've just had bad news
• At New Year (that's almost like a reverse New Year's resolution that one)
• If you’re with the band (my husband’s excuse)
• If you’re having a really shit day

You don't have to be a faux smoker to join in. There are other things that are slightly bad for you can turn you into a self-delusional nutcase. Such as alcohol.

Booze: It doesn’t count if:

If you are in a church. (Passing by one doesn't count)

The drink concerned has fruit other than lemon in it. Pimms is great for this. Why with a good helping of strawberries, cucumber and mint, that’s your Five a Day right there! It’s practically a health-drink, and should be available on the NHS. If you're drinking it at Wimbeldon you're doubly exempt as it is expected of you. If you are seen without a glass of it in your hand, officials may think you a foreign national and try to have you deported.

If the drink is Guinness or any other stout. They may have been having a laugh with the “Guinness is Good for You” advertising nonsense, but show me a woman whose mother hasn’t told them to get some stout down them if they are “run down” and I’ll show you a motherless child.

If you are a woman and you are menstruating or pre-menstrual. It doesn’t say so on the instruction leaflet inside the Feminax packet (but only because it wouldn’t probably be legal) but every girl knows they are only to be taken three times a day with a glass of white wine. Or else they don’t work. FACT. They teach that in sex ed when they divide the class up and take the girls into another room. That's what they're telling them in there, lads, nothing else.

At funerals. You are not allowed by law to refuse a drink at a funeral. It’s disrespectful to the deceased. In Catholic countries a drink refusal could get you stoned or run out of town.

If you’re outside in the sunshine. This goes back to the “on holiday” rule that I applied to smoking. The same applies to drinking. If you are on holiday you can have booze at any time of the day with impunity. Chances are that it’ll have fruit in it anyway, so you’re doubly exempt.

More excuses please in the comments box, please.

* My dad, who is a regular reader of the Misssives, will right now be shaking his head in a disgusted fashion..

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