Up In Smoke
Puff, puff ... cough, cough ... uh, yes ... I smoke.
For some strange reason, everyone I meet these days says pretty much the same thing to me, "Jesus, you smoke???!!!"
Hmmm ... I wonder if Jesus smoked. Probably not. I mean I just can't see Him trying to light up a Benson & Hedges after the Last Supper. Too tough on the cardio, and he must have been in damn good shape to haul that ass of a cross up the hill to Golgotha.
Still, it seems that if you smoke these days, you're given the whole crown of thorns treatment. People, especially reformed smokers, tend to crucify you. At best, I find their attitude amusingly patronizing, and at worst, outright demeaning.
I know smoking is unhealthy. I know smoking kills people and all that. But so does alcohol, obesity, war, stress, lying in bed all day, and any of a wide range of problems we encounter in life. But, O.K., blame me and the other smokers for cancer and catastrophe. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. "Forgive us our trespasses," and all that ...
Smoking hurts my wallet most of all. In Canada, a package of cigarettes cost about $10.00. If I smoke even just 1/2 a pack a day, just imagine the money I could be saving if I gave up this evil, nasty habit — about $1825.00 a year.
Of course, about 75% or $7.50 of that cost is tax. The pre-tax cost of a pack of cigarettes is a meagre $2.50.
The high tax on cigarettes is justified as a means to encourage people to stop smoking. Really?
Just imagine if all the smokers quit on a single day. The economy would crash like that spacecraft that attempted a landing in Roswell some years ago. And guess what? Every other tax imaginable, from sales tax to income tax, would soar to unimaginable heights, because, if the truth be known, smokers are carrying the weight of the economy on their emphysema-contorted backs.
Oh well, it's the cross we bear.
No need to thank me or any of the other smokers in the world. Just keep funnelling the guilt our way, because to be honest, nothing keeps a person smoking better than making someone feel like a morally deficient, smelly, unhealthy, unworthy human being.
Cough, cough ... uh, here, let me help you with your mortgage payment or your kid's college fund ... gotta light?
Puff, puff ... cough, cough ... uh, yes ... I smoke.
For some strange reason, everyone I meet these days says pretty much the same thing to me, "Jesus, you smoke???!!!"
Hmmm ... I wonder if Jesus smoked. Probably not. I mean I just can't see Him trying to light up a Benson & Hedges after the Last Supper. Too tough on the cardio, and he must have been in damn good shape to haul that ass of a cross up the hill to Golgotha.
Still, it seems that if you smoke these days, you're given the whole crown of thorns treatment. People, especially reformed smokers, tend to crucify you. At best, I find their attitude amusingly patronizing, and at worst, outright demeaning.
I know smoking is unhealthy. I know smoking kills people and all that. But so does alcohol, obesity, war, stress, lying in bed all day, and any of a wide range of problems we encounter in life. But, O.K., blame me and the other smokers for cancer and catastrophe. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. "Forgive us our trespasses," and all that ...
Smoking hurts my wallet most of all. In Canada, a package of cigarettes cost about $10.00. If I smoke even just 1/2 a pack a day, just imagine the money I could be saving if I gave up this evil, nasty habit — about $1825.00 a year.
Of course, about 75% or $7.50 of that cost is tax. The pre-tax cost of a pack of cigarettes is a meagre $2.50.
The high tax on cigarettes is justified as a means to encourage people to stop smoking. Really?
Just imagine if all the smokers quit on a single day. The economy would crash like that spacecraft that attempted a landing in Roswell some years ago. And guess what? Every other tax imaginable, from sales tax to income tax, would soar to unimaginable heights, because, if the truth be known, smokers are carrying the weight of the economy on their emphysema-contorted backs.
Oh well, it's the cross we bear.
No need to thank me or any of the other smokers in the world. Just keep funnelling the guilt our way, because to be honest, nothing keeps a person smoking better than making someone feel like a morally deficient, smelly, unhealthy, unworthy human being.
Cough, cough ... uh, here, let me help you with your mortgage payment or your kid's college fund ... gotta light?
We all have our crosses to bear.
ReplyDeleteI don't smoke but I have my own demons...I think I understand how you feel
I heard they are $15.00 a pack in New York...I think they are $8.00 here...of course they grow tobacco in the fields here...
ReplyDeleteThey grow marijuana in the fields here ... ;o}
DeleteAh, lucky I'm a doctor of Psychology and can immediately give you the obvious diagnosis. You, along with many other smokers, are suffering from what I like to call 'reality guilt'. Don't worry, smokers aren't the only ones with this malaise. Overeaters, drinkers, gamblers, ..in fact all kinds of adicts know full well deep down the effects of the choice to partake, and have decided to go ahead despite the down sides, for whatever reason, but the knowledge that personal harm will result is a guilt that the body has to process. Transferring that to an assumption that everyone is judging the choice externalizes that guilt...which is in itself detrimental to the body. It is quite natural therefore to feel condemned by others who don't smoke, but it may often be just your own brain trying to offload that nasty guilt. Personally I am in favour of choice. If you wanna smoke, it's your perrogative, and none of my business. If I care about you I'd wish you didn't self harm, but if I am a stranger, there's plenty of places I can hang out that don't allow smoking so why should I care what you do? I'm in no position to judge anyone, there's plenty of less than wise choices I've made in my life. Go ahead, light up knowing that your right to smoke is validated...you can come down off your cross now.. .
ReplyDeleteThank you, doctor ... got any band-aids? ;o}
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