Wriggly Butts

(a short tale from Rhubarbs from a Rock)

Smokers at sea in sailing boats quickly adapt to using empty beverage cans as ashtrays. Conventional ashtrays seem to wait until a mouthful of ash has accumulated in accordance with gust and direction to coinside with a yawning downwind nonsmoker. I, myself, have used cans ever since I was halfway through my first fag, on my first smoke break as new crew, upwind of a burly health-conscious helmsman.

As we left the harbor on our first day out, I thought I would share this wisdom with my new shipmates. I highlighted the benefits of drinking from the can as opposed to glassware, as it saved sloshing, then converting it into a nonmess cigarette receptacle by squeezing in the sides.

The trick is to crush the can partially, indicating the drink inside is finished and thereby differentiating it from those containing viable refreshment still resting in the poop-deck glass holders. Glass, of course, is a potentially hazardous substance on seesawing surfaces, hence another reason I suggested using the cans only.  Not all new sailors have heard this handy advice.

We were but a few nautical miles from port when I took a swig from my half-full can. A cigarette end floated against my teeth, and I instantly spat it back in disgust, assuming someone was not yet practicing the intricate courtesies of partaking in vices on the upper deck of a yacht. I was temporarily perplexed as to why the butt was still lodged in the front of my mouth, when it suddenly grabbed my lower lip and started to wriggle violently! Nostril hairs froze, eyebrows levitated, and spitting instantly acquired seismic proportions, dislodging the grapple and attracting the attention of fellow passengers.

“What’s the matter?” they asked.

“A wriggly butt,” I nodded at the garish object emerging from the can’s drinking hole, “of the sinister persuasion, not the kind one had in mind.”

We nickname them B-52’s, huge brown and yellow hornets, mercifully not aggressive, unless they think you are going to bite their heads off. They are known to carry a sting that can hospitalize a child. I briefly wondered about the effect it could have on a soft lower lip. What a start to the voyage that would have been.

Fortunately, the creature droned laboriously off without taking revenge and, in so doing, taught me not to think I have all the answers. No one else wanted to meet a wriggly butt on that trip, and everyone converted back to drinking out of glasses … neither did it matter what shape a can was in for the unwriggly ones.