Non-smokers, Butt out
Non-smokers, Butt out!
When I am trying to enjoy my
cigarette, the last thing I want to hear from anybody is that I am ruining my
health and I am going to die. Yes, I am going to die. I appreciate your
concern, but I will not be able to smoke after I die. Will you bring me some
cigarettes when I am in the hospital? Will you pay for my funeral? Will you
launch an international anti-smoking campaign in my name after I have gasped my
last breath? All the good stuff is illegal. May I enjoy my cigarette please?
When I was eleven years old, I started smoking. I wanted to be cool and sexy. I
wanted to look more grown up. Smoking will certainly make you look older; which
is something you will not want when you are older. I was exposed to cigarette
commercials throughout my entire childhood. Good looking, healthy young models
with beautiful white teeth, who had never smoked a cigarette, and boating by a
waterfall, were depicted on billboards everywhere ... What a life! All I had to
do was smoke!
Lucy and Ricky smoked, Fred and Barney smoked, my parents smoked, and all the
pretty girls at school smoked; Humphrey Bogart smoked. Smoking was cool!
Smoking made my life exciting. Stealing my mother's cigarettes was mysterious
and fun. My mother told me that I could start smoking when I could buy my own.
Being sneaky was fun; smoking in the boy’s room! Cigarettes looked cool when I
played the guitar, when I had my arm around a cool smoking girl, or when I was
just hanging out with the guys and being cool.
Cigarettes were very cheap when I started smoking. They became expensive when I
had to support my habit.
Who says that smokers have no will power? When a smoker wants a cigarette, a
smoker will get a cigarette. I once walked fifteen miles down a mountain to buy
a pack of cigarettes. How is that for will power? I was lucky to get a ride
back up the mountain. I wonder how far a non- smoker would walk to get a shot
of wheatgrass.
Non-smokers are so annoying. They never have a cigarette when you have just run
out and really need one, and they never have a light.
"Hey buddy, you got a light?"
"I don't smoke"
"I
didn't ask you that! What if the lights went out and you had to light a candle?
Well, you won't get a light from me!"
These days it is not cool to smoke. I once had an aunt who spent her entire
life trying to quit smoking. She tried many different methods and nothing
worked. Every time she tried, she would over-eat and become grumpy. She felt
guilty about her cigarettes. When she died at the age of ninety-three, she was
a slim and happy lady. I continue her noble work, and trying to quit makes my
life exciting now. I quit everyday. Thank you RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris, Lucy,
Ricky, Barney, Fred..., and Bogie.