Smoke 'em if you got 'em... and then kill yourself

I'm not a very attentive person. Usually if you're a stranger in a public place, you have to do something pretty over-the-top to get my attention. Like blowing smoke over your shoulder into my face and then expecting not to be yelled at, which happened this morning on Mass Ave.

I used to not really care about smoking, because in California nobody smokes except for in bars and at parties, where 9 times out of 10 I'm drunk enough not to care. Then I moved to the East Coast, where EVERYONE smokes. Literally everyone. It's not like in OC where if you see a 12-year-old kid smoking he's just trying to look cool and there's a good chance he's got the cigarette backwards. By the time most kids here are in middle school they have a brand loyalty and the beginning stages of emphysema. It's impossible to go anywhere here without at least coming into contact with smoke.

This is bad for me, because as a general rule I hate smokers, not just because smoking is gross, but also because it's basically saying "I have an expensive, unhealthy, disgusting habit for no good reason." If you're already a friend of mine, I'll tolerate this because you obviously bring something else to the table. But if you're a stranger and you smoke, I hate you and you should be sealed in a coffin full of ravenous centipedes. This especially goes for those of you - mostly fat Italian men, based on my extensive field research - who like to lean against the front of buildings and then blow a cloud of smoke across the sidewalk so everyone else has to walk through it.

Normally I have a pretty libertarian approach to most personal stuff, so I don't really care if you smoke, that's entirely within your rights, ah blah blah. But if you're really obnoxious and you do it around me or other people who aren't smoking, then don't get mad when I sidle up next to you and rip off a fart that smells like a dead woolly mammoth on a hot day. (On a side note, anyone who knows me well knows that this is not an idle threat. My diet consists pretty much of meats, grains, strong-flavored fruits, and protein powder. I can kill a small dog from ten feet away.)

The problem with smoking is that most smokers consider it to be an exercise of personal liberty, as if it doesn't have an effect on anybody else. Anyone who has ever sat next to a fat, sweaty person on a subway car knows this is false. I mean, I could care less whether you smoke in public as long as it's not around me; that's your prerogative. But don't expect any special treatment, and you for damn sure shouldn't be surprised when bars choose not to let you in and other people avoid you. And God help you if you think that smokers are the victims of prejudice. Gays are victims of prejudice, and you don't see them complaining that tolerating homosexuality should extend to fucking unsuspecting strangers in the butt, which is effectively what you're doing when you smoke in an enclosed area.

Both my dad's parents died of complications related to lung cancer. I'm not even going to wait until I get the opportunity to catch my children smoking; I'm just going to tell them at an early age that cigarettes are how people with herpes communicate to one another.

And just on a side note, I think dip is awesome. This is because, unlike cigarettes, A) you can use it while playing sports, B) it's like eating a Jolly Rancher that gets you drunk for 5 minutes and C) other people don't spit it into my mouth when I'm walking down the street.