“What are you in for, anyway?” asked a middle aged, middleweight middle-class man in the middle of the table. “Well, I tried to palm it, but the cop could smell it. It was my 3rd pot violation, so now I’m here”, the youthful-looking thin man replied, then asked, “What about you? You don’t seem like the type. Then again, none of us are.”
“Well,” the middle aged man replied, “I owned a restaurant during the bush years. We had the best french fries. Several customers raised concerns about what type of fat we use in our fryers. They were worried about the adverse health effects of Trans-fat. So we”— “What does this have to do with why you’re here?” said a head-wrapped man with an indian accent. “Well,” continued the middle aged man, “Then they passed the law. They passed a law that said we couldn’t fry in trans-fat anymore. We switched it to peanut oil, but when they did spot-checks of restaurants in the district of the ban, They found enough trans-fat residue in the kitchen to convict us of a violation. It was either a 15,000D fine or jail, and I had about 2,000 in the bank”.
“I’m in here for oil too, man. Vegetable oil though” said a young man on the end of the table with bushy brown hair and small brown eyes. “What?” replied the fallen restauranteur. “I converted my diesel Volkswagen to run on Waste vegetable oil. I kept a reserve tank of it in the trunk for when the engine was warm enough. Well, little did I know that the state wanted me to pay taxes on it.” “Taxes? On wasted oil?” asked the siek-looking man. “Yeah. They said that the oil was subject to the fuel tax. When I told them I’d been doing it for 4 years, the district court decided I should pay back-taxes for the average americans fuel consumption for 4 years. I didn’t have that kind of money, so I’m here”.
“That’s wild” said the indian man. “I got caught with drugs, like this young man” at which time he pointed to the man convicted for pot. “Thing is, it was nicotine”. “What?” everyone exclaimed. “Well, It started with the indoor smoking ban. My state passed a law prohibiting smoking in government buildings. But it was just a slippery slope. Then they prohibited it in private businesses, then near play grounds, then outdoors in public. The only place I could smoke was in my apartment. Then the law was passed that any building with multiple tenants, that share utilities, can not be smoked in. I still got away with it, by turning off my smoke alarm, and hiding cigarettes”. “Then how’d you get caught?” Asked the middle-aged man. “Well, my work passed their own rules that they’re employees couldn’t be smokers. Not only at work, but at all. I laughed at this because I thought they couldn’t possibly enforce it. Imagine my surprise when I was blood-tested. I thought the nicotine would’ve left from my last cigarette, but it hadn’t. I was fired, and my old boss, who was obviously a vehement anti-smoker, tipped off the cops to the fact that I was a smoker. The cops got a search warrant, and kicked my door in, only hours after I was fired. They found my cigarettes; and the tested the wallpaper for traces of tobacco smoke. I was arrested for smoking in a shared residence, so now I’m here”.
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