MELLIPOP AND THE NON-SMOKER

Ok, so where do you fucking self-righteous non-smokers get off lecturing me about my lifestyle choices?

So we had after-work drinks at the pub yesterday. Mistaking the informal gathering for an anti-smoking seminar, one of my colleagues took it upon himself to lecture me about my smoking. Guess what I learned? And I want to share this secret cabal of non-smokers wisdom with my fellow puffing pariahs, in the hope that I can save you from certain death too.

SMOKING IS BAD FOR YOU.

SMOKING CAN KILL YOU.

SMOKING IS HARMFUL TO OTHERS.

Holy shit, it was all I could do to stop myself getting up and hurtling across the room to hurl my packet of cancer-sticks out the window and into the path of oncoming traffic. So I lit up another one instead.

My colleague then had the audacity to end his uninvited lecture by saying, "After all I've just said, how can you possibly light up another cigarette?".

Umm...let's see.

1. I think you're a pompous jerk and I have absolutely no respect for your otherwise enlightening tutorial
2. I quite enjoy smoking
3. I have a half-full glass of beer in my other hand
4. I am in a legally-sanctioned smoking area of the pub - these are as rare as non-lecturing non-smokers these days
5. I am hoping that if I ceaselessly chain-smoke in your presence, you might just drop dead on the spot from an acute case of saturation passive smoking
6. I feel that it is far more polite to utilise a cigarette to sublimate my otherwise impolite desire to spit in your self-righteous face

I then spent the rest of the evening deliberately segregated at the other end of the room, enaging in a mass-suicide pact with my fellow smokers. Which is otherwise known as having a couple of brews with a fag or two thrown into the mix. But without all the lectures. This is known as "Smoker's Apartheid". We simply don't want to mix with the likes of you, who get off on warning us about the certainty of our impending death. Like you fuckers are really gonna live forever.

I mean, I'm not here to defend smoking. Let me just inform my benevolently concerned non-smoking brothers and sisters that we do already know it's not the most healthy of lifestyle choices. What I am here to defend is the right to make that LEGAL lifestyle choice, without being constantly badgered by these self-appointed guardians of public health.

WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU PEOPLE GET OFF ANYWAY?

What the fuck does someone who has never smoked before, know about the reasons why people smoke? And the reasons why we find it difficult to quit smoking, if the notion ever enters our head to stop. Like their few words of smarmy, unsolicited advice - chosen carefully from the wide pool of anti-smoking propaganda - is going to make me stop all of a sudden and say,

"Hey, YOU'RE RIGHT you know! This IS a rather quite silly thing to do. Let's go jump in a dinghy and save the fucking whales or something. Oh, and please know that you have my undying gratitude for SAVING MY LIFE. You're a fucking HERO mate, that's what you are".

And reformed smokers are THE WORST. They are even more self-righteous than non-smokers. They masquerade their desperate desire to stick a bunger in their gob with this lofty air of moral superiority that pisses me the hell off. Go join your fellow non-smokers for a massive moral circle jerk and leave me to die with my ciggies in peace.

Fucking non-smokers. There should be a law against them.

MELLIPOP AND MR MUSHROOM HEAD

Ok, so it’s 3:30 on a Monday afternoon and you’re tripping off your head on a combination of acid, mushrooms and alcohol.

Question: Who do you choose to sit next to on a busy commuter train?

Answer: Mellipop.

Yes, your resident “freak magnet” friend and narrator got herself a live one today on the way home just now.

So I’m sitting quietly on the train, reading my book (Marianne Faithfull’s autobiography, for the trainspotters amongst us) and am contentedly engrossed until a huge swaggering bear of a man staggers onto the train and falls into the seat next to me, leaving his screaming gal pal fumbling at the ticket machine on the platform as the train pulls away. The man reeks as though he has just recently bathed in a tub full of white spirits.

He is ranting incoherently, swaying into me and calling me a cunt. He is also pointing at the poor little Indian guy on the other side of him and is calling him a cunt too. I inwardly cringe while maintaining a neutral expression, my eyes fastened on my book. This is what I like to call my “Crazy Dog” technique. The hypothesis on which it is founded is that crazy people - like crazy dogs - are best neutralised by avoiding all eye contact and not making any sudden movements which might otherwise antagonise them. You do this until you determine the level of threat involved and then proceed to act accordingly.

My initial diagnosis was not a positive one. I naturally assumed from the guy’s stench that he was a raving mad drunk. Raving mad drunks are often only one small step away from being aggressive and violent. Especially ones that point at you and call you a cunt.

MR MUSHROOM: So he’s a cunt, and she’s a cunt and it’s like the male and the female, and the penis and the vagina. I’ll never understand these cunts. (pointing at me and the young Indian guy sitting on his opposite side)

MELLIPOP: (thinks) Oh dear. This guy is drunk off his nut and has just had a domestic with his woman. Only four more stops until North Fremantle.

MR MUSHROOM: Yeah so I’m on fucking mushrooms and acid man. I’m on fucking mushrooms and acid. I’m so fucking tripping. Perth has shit fucking drugs man. These fucking cunts are from Perth (pointing at me and the Indian guy again). I’ll never understand these cunts. I’m from Melbourne, man. Melbourne has the best fucking drugs. Coke, acid, fucking mushrooms, speed. Perth has SHIT drugs. Perth is fucked, man. They’re all cunts. Sydney has great fucking drugs.

MELLIPOP: (thinks) Phew!!! He’s only on acid. Thank God! He’s harmless.

(listens with more interest now that the imminent threat of violence has diminished)

So, it's quite ironic that as soon as I find out that he is on a “harmless” combination of illegal hallucinogenic drugs - and not alcohol - my fear of him completely diminishes, and I can begin to enjoy our little interlude as unexpected drive-time entertainment. What does that say about so-called “legal” drugs like alcohol?

Anyway, so at this point I think, what the hell, the guy’s talkative. And seemingly harmless. Might as well talk back to him. I mean, he had acknowledged me - even though he called me a cunt. It’s only polite to acknowledge him back. And I'm nothing if not polite.

MELLIPOP: So, where you from?

MR MUSHROOM: MELBOURNE, man!! This cunt here is from Perth (pointing to the Indian guy again, who still looks frozen with terror). And he still lives with his mother. And his mother is his fucking wife. His mother is his wife!

MELLIPOP: And I’m from Sydney.

MR MUSHROOM: You’re from Sydney? Where you from in Sydney?

MELLIPOP: Leichhardt, Newtown….

MR MUSHROOM: (eyes lighting up) Really? You got any coke?

MELLIPOP: Umm….no. I’m in Perth now man. The drugs are shit, remember.

MR MUSHROOM: YEAH!! They’re all cunts here. Perth is fucking shit!

So even drug-fucked Melbournites know the score. PERTH IS FUCKING SHIT. I’m totally straight, he’s totally fucked and yet two ex-pat East Coasters still managed to bond over the fact that PERTH IS FUCKING SHIT.

MELLIPOP: So what are you doing over here, if you hate it so much?

MR MUSHROOM: I’m importing, man. I’m setting up and importing.

MELLIPOP: (train pulls into North Fremantle) Yeah alright. Enjoy the rest of your trip, mate.

(thinks) Brilliant pun Mellipop! Shame the guy’s too fucked up to fully appreciate it.

And then I got off the train and walked home. Monday afternoons, huh? Crazy.