Does anyone remember when smoking was still okay?
I hate to be such a nut about this, but I have such a nostalgic streak about SOME of the way things used to be. Not the casual racism and misogyny – don’t get sidetracked by what you think nostalgia is – but some of the items from the past that made the world seem cool.
I liked when there were no cough guards on salad bars. When that ended I just felt that everything was over, the goodness had run out. We must be slobbering, coughing imbeciles, because Sizzler now has to protect us from each other. It was like the end of the world to me.
And smoking. Everybody used to smoke. We smoked in college classrooms. We smoked at the grocery store. We smoked in bars and restaurants and on planes. Oh, yes, I know it’s a giant KILLER. I’m not an idiot. But nothing ever tasted better to me than a cigarette. And the fire, the control of fire. Fire right here in my hand. Jesus I felt like a god.
Oh, but then the smokers kept getting pushed out of places, out of this place, out of that place. They huddled around outside. Even outside now isn’t enough. 50 yards away, please. Look at my children. MY DARLING CHILDREN. YOU’RE KILLING MY CHILDREN.
It’d be nice if we could all live happily and healthily, and that the things we loved only proved to make us more tan, more loving. But we’re all dying. We’re all 45 seconds closer to dying than when you started reading this blog today. I AM GOING TO DIE from fatness or smoke or driving my car into a canyon or my pancreas will get me. Yes, and don’t be alarmed, but you, too.
My view of it is just mine. You don’t have to share it. You can think I’m a doofus. I want to live, but only live if it’s worthwhile…to me, my wife, my dog, my tiny handful of friends. If they accept me, what I am, what I do, and it brings me happiness in this endlessly, poundingly, depressingly messed up world, then I believe I’m going to do the things that bring me respite from what is clearly a world gone mad, a cough guard replete place that has just about snuffed out goodness.
Oh, and the fucking seat belt beeper in my car. That thing is making me absolutely crazy, too.
Yes, I agree with Bob. And what burns me is that rates of smoking have mostly dropped among the upper and middle classes, but among the working class and the poor they’re still pretty high. So, of course, since these folks have little to no political clout because they don’t give to campaigns and don’t vote in high numbers, we have a high, self-righteous tax on tobacco that mostly affects these people and not the people who have plenty of money anyway. To be fair, I think, we should put a luxury tax on any vehicle that costs over $35,000. But if you did that, the hue and cry about “our freedoms” and “our rights” and all the rest of that sort of bullshit would just be astounding. But there’s little to nothing about the classism of the cigarette tax. I’ve been quit for 12 years myself and have some health issues from it, so I do understand the problems with the addiction. But still, fair’s fair, I think.
Well said, gentlemen! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to step outside for a moment …
What’s the plural of doofus?
Doofia? Either that or Doofites.
Doofi, as in Elvi (cigarette in picture below is purely incidental):