As I opened my fresh can of chew, I was asked by my son Noah, “Why do you do that?” My first thought was to tell him the story, since I am brutally honest with my children; sometimes outside of the MPAA rating. But in this case you should be clear what your kid is asking before you answer… For anyone who has watched me open my nicotine in a can, you notice that I completely peel off the label. The side first to break the seal, and then the top/bottom if applicable: basically anything with adhesive. It’s not OCD; there is a story behind it.
So, on and off since the age of 14 I have chewed tobacco: probably more on than off. Yes, I know it is a disgusting habit. I don’t need to be reminded. However no one ever died from second hand spit. Nonetheless I have witnessed the consumption of many a spittoon. Not a pretty site. Yet again; no one ever died from second hand spit. You hear about the cancers associated with “dipping” but you are probably not aware of your risk of ass cancer.
Rewind to the glorious year of 1992 when I was working 2 jobs and going to school. One of those jobs was for UPS at the airport. I would leave my evening job at about 8pm and go over to JT’s house before we would all head to the airport for our midnight start time. That 4 hour window should have been for sleep, but always ended up in debauchery.
Now I don’t know if it was JT or myself who started peeling off the labels. I just know one night we had this “intellectual” conversation about why they should be peeled. And even after the “smoke” settled, it turned into a drinking game where you had to peel it off in one try; or you had to drink a 22oz of Mickey’s. But I’m getting off track (And Noah is very confused right now). So JT’s house was not necessarily a party house; but there was a lot of people traffic. No one ever went thirsty and you could alter your reality nightly. Lumpy (and yes this is a nickname, and no, to this day I never knew his real name) was also a UPS employee and stopped by on multiple occasions. After about a month he fell prey to mine and JT’s peer pressure to take a pinch between his teeth and gum.
Now to set this up correctly, I will have to mention that we would go into work early and hang out in the pilots lounge. It was niiiiice. There was a big screen TV with all the channels you could ask for; and more importantly there was about 10 leather lazy boy chairs to fall asleep in. We would smoke “something” that would make us really hungry, slam Mickey D’s or Taco Bell, and nap in the pilots lounge until we had to work at midnight. The first night that Lumpy took a plug, we had just ate an ass ton of food at Mickey D’s. He was a big guy and if I remember correctly he ate 3 Big Macs. For all those who remember their first encounter with smokeless tobacco; you should relate. As he sat in the brown leather lazy boy I could see his face beginning to change colors. I had flashbacks to my first time; where I chucked Jo Jo’s Pizza out my nose. As he tried to get up to make it to the restroom, he was engulfed by leather buoyancy not able to get up. The faucet of liquid fast food sprayed the leather and the floor below. Needless to say we were not allowed in the pilots lounge again. But again; I am getting side tracked (and so was Noah). Despite the incident at the airport; he continued to chew along with JT and myself. About a week later, he noticed that when we bought a new can of chew we peeled off the label; side first, then top and bottom. As did Noah, he asked, “Why do you do that?” Being the smart ass (no pun intended) that I am I said this...
“You know how guys always put their can in their back pocket. Well there was just this study that long term exposure to the adhesive used in the labeling causes cancer. So there has been a dramatic spike in ass cancer with people who chew tobacco. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want ass cancer. (I’d like to thank the academy)”
Now Lumpy must have got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t watching; and moreover he was pretty gullible. So from then on, he peeled his labels; as did JT and myself. It went from a drinking game to one of the funniest running jokes I had ever set in motion. To this day; after losing touch with JT and Lumpy, I still peel in honor of my brilliance, and other people’s ignorance.
As I finished telling the story to Noah; I could see that he still seemed a bit baffled. And then he followed up with, “No Dad, I didn’t mean why do you peel off the labels. I mean, why do you put that stuff in your lip?”
Oops!
Postscript: For all you punctuation Nazi’s, yes I know I way over used colons and semi-colons. Again, this is part of my brilliance. And if you don’t get it, well, read the title again, and if you still don’t get it, we’ll just call that ignorance.
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