Can someone please tell me why anyone would ever want to smoke? Although it’s a pet peeve of mine (as is the term “pet peeve”), this is not an angry or rhetorical question. It’s not a smart-ass remark or an angry statement. I am sincerely asking this as an honest question, because I’m looking for an answer. No one has ever been able to give me a good answer. I have lived my entire life with family members and friends who smoke and they have never been able to convince me of a good reason to do so. They’ve given me reasons, sure, just never ones that meant anything.                

They tell me being drunk makes them want a cigarette, but I still don’t understand. Despite what most people think, I’ve been drunk from time to time and I never wanted a cigarette. In fact with weakened inhibitions, I would actually say things such as “Put that shit out before I stab you in the eye.” People claim it calms them. Why is it then when I so much as smell cigarette smoke, I get agitated and am suddenly urged to stab someone’s eye?

When someone claims to “need” a cigarette, I am not the least bit sorry for them, because in actuality, they don’t. No one needs one. All they have to do is not place it in the mouth, not light it, and not inhale. I’ve been consistently not smoking my entire life now. It’s never once been difficult. If someone could even describe to me what it’s like to desire a smoke, I will be ecstatic to finally somewhat understand this mysterious yearning no one has ever been able to explain to me.                                  

Man has always hated or feared what he does not understand and I don’t understand smoking, so it’s only natural for me to hate it. I don’t understand it because it has no positive effects and a nearly infinite number of negative ones. The various health problems it causes is too long of a list for my patience, but the most well-known effects associated with smoking are A) the smell, B) making a sick organization like the tobacco industry rich, and of course C) dying, which is led up to by all the physical damages it does.

This effect in this short list of three is often shrugged off by the “live fast, die young” attitude. “We’re all going to die anyway, so why worry about it coming any sooner?” Well, life’s short enough as it is and I want to stretch that bad boy out as long as possible. Living in pain as a dying old man is better than not living at all. After all, it’s just pain. Even if I’m just a head in a box, take me to the strip club and set me on the counter with a dollar in my mouth. I’m hanging on to life. Therefore, I consider the death thing a negative effect.                                 

This brings me to my proposal. We can have these same effects without the burden of secondhand smoke. You can smell bad without making others smell bad, give your money away without feeding a major corporation, and die without causing bodily malfunctions in anyone else. Unlike smoking, there are positive effects from my proposal beneficial to society. I know that taxes are a benefit, but there are other things we can be taxing instead. Don’t give me the taxes speech.     

First of all, stop taking showers. Completely stop bathing. If you want to smell bad, simply do not apply soap or water to any portion of your body. This way you can send an unbearable stench to the olfactory glands of everyone around you. They’ll be pissed off, but at least it won’t be killing anyone. You also help by conserving water and reducing carbon emissions used to heat the water. Everyone takes too many showers as it is. They don’t work out or get dirty or anything and still take showers for no reason. Save the water and energy to make up for these wasteful consumers who think they need a shower twice a day.

If you really want to be effective, stop brushing your teeth as well. They’ll turn yellow to tan to a dark brown nasty shit color. Eventually, you’ll get more cavities than a man in a turban going through airport security and your teeth will fall out, the same effects cigarettes have. I am not exaggerating or being overly-paranoid. It’s true.                         

The next step is giving your money to the ones dying from your secondhand smoke. Packs of cigarettes are very expensive, eating up your finances substantially, all going to an evil cause. The tobacco industry grows more powerful, figuring out ways to kill gullible children and adults who can’t make a decision on their own by telling them how great smoking is.

Instead of supporting a corporation like this, add up all the money you would otherwise spend on cigarettes, collect it, and give it to hospital patients dying from secondhand smoke. This way, people who suffer from your decision to look cool in front of your friends in junior high will have a better chance of survival. You won’t be able to undo the damage you’ve done, but at least you can partially help. Again, I am not being an overly-paranoid anti-smoking fanatic. This is completely logical.             

The final part of my proposal is the most important. Shoot yourself in the mouth with a shotgun. This way you can die without making anyone else die. It kills you instantaneously rather than taking several years of wheezing and coughing and breathing through oxygen tubes. Hey, you don’t really have to shoot yourself in the mouth.

If you like the “live fast, die young” lifestyle, why not take up something that could kill you that’s actually fun to do. Climb up some big-ass rock without a harness or jump from an airplane. Maybe you’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to swim with sharks. I don’t know. Just save the oxygen tubes for the ones dying from your secondhand smoke.                                                  

On the other hand, in the privacy of someone’s own home, people should be able to smoke as much as they want, whenever they want, and whatever they want, including tobacco, weed, crack, banana peels, silly putty, lizard feet, etc. Maybe not meth. That shit is fucked up. However, outside a private residence, it shouldn’t be happening, but it shouldn’t be the law. Then we’d have more people in jail, eating up tax dollars. We’ve all seen how well the law works with this kind of issue.

Fuck the law. It should just be out of simple consideration. In conclusion to my proposal, energy and water is conserved, cancer patients are provided with financial support, and you’re dead just like you weren’t worried about anyway. There really is no fanaticism involved here. This is simple flawless logic, something our society as a whole is very uncomfortable with.