Grappa & Grading!

My intense grading sessions tend to take place at the café right up the road from my apartment, a place owned by a gregarious Italian man, where I can get multiple cappuccinos throughout the day, to keep me awake during the tedious task of marking a lot of essays that are works-in-progress. Today was one of those days.

What was unique about today, however, was being invited to join the owner and a few of his friends for rounds of espresso with added shots of homemade grappa, a gift to the owner from one of his neighbors in Italy. That short hiatus from grading -- sitting around a table and drinking with two funny Italians, a slightly stoic German, and a white Malawian in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday -- was extremely welcome.  I do think, however, that the following certain lines from some of the essays would have been just as hilarious, with or without the grappa. Because they still seem pretty funny now. 

The following excerpts are from essays that were answering the question 'Should tobacco companies be held responsible for smoking-related illnesses and death?'

"Despite the freedom people have to smoking, there are several institutions that provide civic education to the people especially the elderly and the blind making them aware of the health problems which arise from the smoking behaviours."

[Man, the blind and the elderly get all the perks.]

"The women along the lake shore areas share this blame. They spend much of their time at the lake to the extent of offering their services (committing copulations) for fish." 

[Nope, I didn't add that parenthetical phrase. It came like that. Clearly, I couldn't make this stuff up.]

"It indirectly affects the ant smoking lobby."

[Yes, those ants really need a lobby to smoke in!]

"As any person mainly smokers know, there is a caution written on every ciggarette that warns people on the repurations one would encounter as a result of smoking."

[On each cigarette in very very very tiny writing is imprinted the warning: 'Smoking results in repurations!' No wonder people still smoke. 1. The writing is too small to read and 2. No one knows what repurations are.]

"You know the truth but you are biting about the bush deliberately."

[Hmmm...I didn't know there was such a thing as unintentional biting about the bush. I'm going to leave that one be.]