The other day, I found myself in a similar argument with a friend over my smoking:
Friend: But why do you do it?
Me: Because I enjoy it and everyone hates it. You know I'm a contrarian prick.
Friend: But it's disgusting and it kills you.
Me: What doesn't kill you these days?
Then I proceeded to launch into my typical defense of smokers, which invariable involves comparing smoking to eating shit. To wit, there are roughly 400,000 Americans who die of cancer each year and not every single one of them was a smoker. In fact, most of them were probably fatasses who lived off sugar, uncaffeinated coffee, and high fructose corn syrup who passed anti-smoking laws because they worried about the effect of second-hand smoking on their treasured health. Let me repeat that fact: 400,000 Americans die every year of cancer and most of them were not smokers.
Secondly, what pisses me off as a smoker is that we as a society placate, coddle, and pity the fatties. "Oh, wah. I'm 600 pounds and I don't know why God did me like this!" God didn't shove mountains of shit down your throat. God did not invent the Oreo pizza or the deep fryer. And God probably doesn't consider being fat a "curse." Dude used to make shit rain frogs and killed tons of people just to prove a point about his severe jealously. You know, we shouldn't make excuses for these people. Just like me, they have a vice that should be frowned upon. But unlike me, they get Oprah specials and a bizarre outpouring of sympathy. Just because everyone is fat doesn't make it right, mmmkay? Besides, it's funny as hell to watch fat people fall down.
This brings me to the state of Maryland's decision to ban smoking in bars and restaurants a few years ago. OK, right. Because people go to bars and get shitfaced out of concern for their health. People waddle into restaurants to stuff themselves numb at the buffet (with room for desert!) out of concern for their health. If you're going to make it difficult for me to light up without being cited, then you better make it hard for fatties to access their drugs. Ban fatties from fast food joints! Make McDonald's, Burger King, and Little Debbie shell out big like the tobacco companies did in the 90s! Jesus! The hypocrisy here is really astounding.
Anyway, after I went through all that, my friend had to admit I had a point. Fuck yeah I do.
3 comments:
I am from California and smoking in restaurants has been banned since I can remember. As a non smoker I think it's great. I think it’s simply disgusting when people smoke while they themselves, or those around them, are eating. I was shocked that Utah allowed people to smoke inside buildings. (Be happy you don’t live in CA. I remember reading that one city actually banned smoking outside on all public property.)
I do agree that it isn't the only thing we do that's unhealthy, but the difference is the way smoke can affect a person just by being near it. (Honestly though, as long as it isn’t blowing in my son’s face, I could care less.) It would be similar to you gaining weight just by being near an obese person.
Not very pleasant.
I agree that smoking is annoying/unhealthy for non-smokers but that's why I don't do it around people who don't smoke. I just have a hard time with the government/society trying to crack down on one vice (particularly in bars) while freely allowing others. But c'est la vie, right? And it makes for a good blog rant. ;)
yeah I get you. :)
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