Goldmind's Unwind

“Okay if I smoke?”
“Sure, mind if I fart?”


Bad habits have been a popular favorite since Adam and Eve smoked their first dime of crack. But even more trendy than having bad habits, is quitting them. Entire organizations, are built on kicking everything from airplane glue to Pez, but the number one habit people love to quit is cigarettes. I used to quit smoking every night before going to bed. I realized I was in denial when I started using insomnia as an excuse to not quit.

Recently I actually did quit and my sense of smell returned. It's a good thing because it reminded me that my ex, who died of second hand smoke three months ago, was still in the closet. My parents were always concerned about second hand smoke. So they stayed at least ten feet apart whenever they smoked. They thought if they smoked the more natural cigarettes, it wouldn't kill them. They were right, they both died from natural causes...in their early thirties.

Back in the day, people didn't worry about second hand smoke. The father smoked at the dinner table and flicked the ashes right on the babies head. Now they're trying to ban smoking in all public places. I'll support that when they ban perfume, cologne and all whale vomit based designer stenches in general. They would also have to outlaw body odor, bad breath and farting, Incarcerate every skunk, civet cat and rutting goat, plus shut down half of New Jersey. Internal combustion engines would have to go too.

Though studies show that jogging along a freeway is less damaging to the lungs than if you're driving because when you breath heavily, the toxins don't have time to settle in. Yeah but I can easily run them over, but anyway... based on that fact, I took up exercising so I wouldn't have to quit smoking. But I can't find a gym with a smoking section.

So, begrudgingly, I nicked the kickotine habit, but the cravings wouldn't go away, so I got the patch. It was useless because I wasn't breast fed nearly long enough—my girlfriend weaned me off the double D's after only a year—so I still have the oral fixation. I tried the gum. That was close, but no cigar. Now I've started smoking moderately, five packs a day. But I found the combination of the three gives me the satisfaction I want from a bad habit. Now my girlfriend says kissing me tastes like licking an ashtray. I told her that's disgusting. Whose ashtray was it anyway?

I don't trust anti-smoking campaigns either. When was the last time some corporation or political entity told you to do something for your health? If they paid for a billboard, they've figured out how to make money from it. You've seen the ads:

“10,000 Smoking Related Deaths This Year.”

That includes the guy who tried to toss his cigarette out the closed window of his car, the cherry landed in his lap so he swerved trying to brush it onto the floor, hit the car next to him who veered of the road into a vegetable stand launching a zucchini over a fence hitting the emergency brake on Clevis McGee's back hoe which rolled over a haystack where he and Debbie Jo Calhoun were bumpin' uglies until they got tilled into the topsoil, dismembered and dried in the noon day sun.

Then there are those Surgeon General warnings that get more and more severe every few years:





This has been a public disservice announcement from the
American Council of Money Grubbing Corporations
Who Care About Your Health as Much as They Care
About Who Becomes the Next U.S. President.

by Numbsain...“at least he gives a shit!”