Smoking: What are You Waiting For?

Recently I jokingly asked someone if they could recommend a brand of cigarettes, because I needed a hobby, and I planned to take up smoking. This was met with a glassy-eyed stare and an earnest lecture against the evils of smoking.

I felt it was time to revisit an old post extolling the many reasons people should start smoking.

Note: so many of my jokes are met with glassy-eyed stares, I could use them to hypnotize people.    

See how happy you could be.
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The plight of tobacco executives in our country.

With the combination of class action lawsuits and the implementation of restrictive legislation, the poor tobacco executives in our country have taken a terrible beating over the past several years. It has resulted in a precipitous tumble in their social standing; they have gone from being filthy stinking rich, to being only extremely well off. If we don’t take immediate action, where will it end?

The fate of our tobacco executives if we don’t take immediate action.
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The word emphysema is really fun to say.

It’s a word that just rolls off your tongue.  Em-phy-se-ma: one syllable just flows into the next. Try saying it once. Try saying it several times in a row. Try saying it quickly. Try saying it quickly several times in a row (unless you have emphysema: you might pass out).

The great thing about emphysema is that once you have it, it never goes away. And emphysema will affect nearly every aspect of your life; so you will have no trouble working it into daily conversation:

• The doctor diagnosed me with emphysema.
• I’m taking this medicine for my emphysema.
• I’d love to play with my grandchildren more, but I can’t because of my emphysema.
• I climbed two flights of stairs and collapsed in a sweaty quivering mass due to my emphysema.
• I won at scrabble when I played the word emphysema. Thank goodness I can still play board games.

Not only will you have fun with the word emphysema, but so will your friends and family, long after you’re gone:

• What a nice funeral. I guess the doctor said he would have survived the pneumonia if hadn’t been for the emphysema.
• He certainly died young, but his quality of life wasn’t very good with the emphysema.
• Remember that time he coughed up a piece of lung and we all laughed for hours; crazy thing that emphysema.

In a twist of irony, you won a scrabble tournament playing the words, healthy alveoli.
(image source: snapdesign.com)

You need to know what they’re talking about.

You’ve seen them huddled together, enjoying their cigarettes, with their furtive glances and secretive whispers.

They’re outside of the bar, the restaurant, the bank. They’re outside any and every place of business. They assemble in the wind, the rain, and the snow. They assemble regardless of scorching heat or an F5 tornado. Nothing deters them.

What can they be talking about? It must be of incredible importance. They must be solving the puzzles of the universe.

You’ve tried approaching them, but without a cigarette in your hand, they just regard you with disdain and disgust.

It’s been eating at you; you need to know what they’re talking about.

Note: It’s a little known fact that Albert Einstein developed both special and general relativity, while huddled with a bunch of coworkers outside of a patent office, in a brutal German snowstorm.

“Get lost, we’re discussing important things. We’re discussing a possible cure for cancer or emphysema. Hey, emphysema, that’s fun to say.”
(image source: sodahead.com)

To stick it to that know-it-all the Surgeon General

You’re a rebel and you don’t appreciate anybody telling you how to live your life. You certainly don’t need some preachy Surgeon General constantly yapping at you about lung cancer, heart disease, or 32 known carcinogens.

There are tons of dangerous activities out there that the Surgeon General has said absolutely nothing about:

• Poking yourself in the eye with a stick.
• Dropping a brick on your toes.
• Insulting the wife of a tattoo laden biker dude.
• Juggling knives.
• Attempting to re-attach your fingers with a sewing needle and some thread following some ill-advised knife juggling.
• Hitting yourself repeatedly in the face with a hammer.

Why don’t hammers come with an explicate warning from the Surgeon General; you don’t have to hit yourself in the face more than five or six times with a hammer, to do some real damage.

If we’re going to make any real changes, it’s up to all of you out there to light up and start puffing away.

I’d start smoking today if my jaw wasn’t wired shut.

I’m launching a lawsuit; those irresponsible executives at Black & Decker, need to learn.
(image source: wpclipart.com)