While outside smoking a cigarette, I was enjoying that sweet poison flowing through my veins when a colleague from my office strolled by with the oh-so-clever remark, “You know if you keep smoking you’re going to die”.
I paused to take another drag and responded, what I believed was in a perfectly reasonable manner, “I’m afraid that is the universal condition; Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live.”
I went on, “You do know that regardless of how healthy your lifestyle is, one day, hopefully many years down the line, you’ll be visited by the Grim Reaper, the great leveler, the hooded one, and with an embrace as soft as graveside earth and a kiss as cold as tombstone he shall gather you unto God.”
In my opinion, all perfectly reasonable… Anyway, upon returning to the office, my manager confronted me with, “What the hell did you say to X? She’s in tears in the toilet”……??……?…..
Ah well, next time perhaps I’ll tell them they’ll embark to teddy bear land in a sleigh made of candy canes, with Father Christmas behind the wheel.