Life can present you with some pretty hard experiences and sometimes you need to grasp a Blue Moon Opportunity to change your life. There are some people though, who are just too smart for their own good and try to generate opportunities where there aren't any.

A box of rare and very expensive cigars was purchased by a North Carolina man, who promptly insured them against fire. Sitting back to enjoy the luxury, he smoked his way through the entire box in just a few weeks. He of course, never bothered to pay even the first premium on the insurance policy.

"My rare cigars have been lost through a series of small fires", was the man's claim to the insurance company. A claim the company refused to pay up on. They said the man had consumed the cigars in a normally acceptable way. They of course had no proof of this, apart from the man's own confession.

The judge agreed the claim was frivolous, however the court acknowledged the man was holding a policy from the insurance company, which warranted the cigars as being insurable and covered against fire. The judge pointed out the insurance company had failed to specify what form of fire was unacceptable.

Apart from a costly process of fighting the court, the insurance company was forced to accept the judge's ruling. The judge awarded the owner of the cigars $15,000, through loss by fire.

The insurance company appeared to graciously retire, until the man cashed the cheque. Believing he had thoroughly outsmarted the insurance company, through what seemed to be a once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity, the man proceeded with his plan to spend the money. Once the cheque was presented at the bank, the insurance company ordered the man to be arrested on a count of twenty-four acts of arson. The man's testimony from the previous court case was used to condemn him. Convicted of deliberately burning insured property, the man was sentenced to twenty-four months in jail, besides being charged to pay a $24,000 fine.

There is now a universal non acceptance of smoking. Could the guy in North Carolina have purchased the largest cigar in the world? Rolled by Castelar at 45-feet long, it surpassed his 2000 35-foot world record. It would have been something to really choke on. Would the guy from North Carolina have got more than one month's jail for smoking this one?