Don't misbehave or else...

Short story from my dad:

My dad was serving as a civil servant in one of the more rural states in Malaysia just before I was born. It being a rather small state, everyone new everybody else. One of my dad's friends was a very senior state civil servant.

This civil servant liked to have a drink every night after dinner. And he used to invite my dad over to join him. The only problem was that his alcohol tolerance wasn't overly high, and when he was drunk he could become somewhat rowdy.

As a senior civil servant, he had a handgun (gun laws in Malaysia are extremely restrictive. It's extremely difficult to get a license to own a handgun) and he wasn't shy in waving it when he was drunk.

Usually the drinking would go on until it was fairly late, and my dad would try to excuse himself saying that he needed to get to sleep in order to work the next day. At that point, the senior civil servant would whip out his handgun and tell my dad, "You stay and drink. Or do you want me to shoot you?"

His wife wasn't too happy about her husband's drinking habits, and my mother told me she'd come to visit her the next day in tears. There were instances when he was so drunk, he couldn't find the bathroom before going to bed and he would open the closet and pee into it.

During one of our yearly festivities, my dad held an open house for visitors to come and join in the celebrations. At that time, my grandmother had come down from another state to join us as well. It was during the open house that she met the senior civil servant.

My dad laughed as he recounted the incident. The senior civil servant was sober and very gentlemanly but he did have an odd way of thinking at times. Whilst chatting with my grandmother (who was a very sweet, small little old lady) he told her, "Auntie, if your son ever misbehaves, you tell me and I will shoot him" whereupon he took out his handgun and put it on the table.

According to my dad, my grandmother's eyes virtually popped out when he'd said those words and showed her his handgun.

Thankfully, he never did use the handgun on anyone.