Smokers...
03/24/2009
Thank God for smokers. Just the other day I stopped by the gas station, oddly enough to purchase petrol for my car. While there, I ducked inside to buy a drink for me and a USA Today for The Nancy. The drink was to quench my thirst, and the paper was so The Nancy would have the cross-word puzzle to do so she would not have to talk with me.
As I stepped up to the counter to pay for my stuff, the lady there excused herself and she quickly darted into a back room. She was only MIA for a few seconds, but while she was gone I happen to notice all the cigarettes on shelves on the wall behind the counter. It has been a very long time since I bought cigarettes, so long in fact, I didn’t really have any sense what they now cost. I was taken aback at the prices - Marlboro at $4.09 a pack, and Virginia Slims at $5.09 a pack, to name a few.
I told the lady the last time I bought cigarettes I paid $1.50. I was in the Air Force, and the buck and a half bought the whole carton, 15 cents a pack. As I said $5.00 a pack ought to be enough to make everyone quit, she just stared at me like I was an idiot, and about the time I noticed her badly nicotine stained fingers she said, “That’s not too bad.”
If you are a smoker you have to know the US Government does not want you to quit. Smoking is one of the Feds best rackets. It is about the best Cash Cow the government has. In fact, it would not surprise me to find out there is some clandestine agency whose sole job it is to get kids hooked on nicotine…maybe they put it in baby formula or Mountain Dew. I notice an awful lot of kids smoking these days, and just cannot help but wonder with all we know of the effects of lighting up, why would any intelligent human being still indulge in such a filthy habit? And having said that, I may have backhandedly answered my own question.
With this personal side note to all smokers who might read this: Please, don’t quit, ever. Keep on smoking. Maybe increase your usage of tobacco products to two three packs a day? You will get to enjoy your smokes, and don’t worry you might damage your health, and get that raspy, deep smokers voice, and prematurely age your skin. Don’t be concerned that you will, like a lot of smokers before you, probably die long before you develop any really serious cancers or emphysema, and more importantly know as long as there are idiots who continue to smoke the Government will not raise taxes on my beer.
And that is all I have to say about that…