The Book of Screed - February 22nd, 2008

I work in an office full of computer equipment, so you can imagine I became quite alarmed when I smelled smoke. After several minutes of hunting, I found the source of the smell.

Someone had set the blasted cigarette disposal on fire with a smoldering butt.

Argh!

I don’t like the way everything is regulated down to the inch nowadays; if you want to smoke, then smoke. But if you do, you stink. Literally. How can you not choke on the vile, greasy odor of charred tobacco that envelops your hair, your teeth, your breath, your clothes, your car, and quite probably your place of residence? Oh, wait, you killed your nose off years ago, so there’s nothing to deter you as you continue befouling the air.

How did King James describe smoking? “A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”  Right on, my long-dead absolutist friend. The best thing you can say about smoking is that the smell may not completely resemble the greasy smoke rolling off the charred souls of the damned as they write in eternal torment. Now that’s high praise!

But, you might say, you don’t want to smoke. You only started because all your friends did or all the cool kids did or and it was only for social reasons and now you’re hooked and you just can’t quit, woe is you. Fine. Whatever. Like I said, you can do what you want.

But could you at least refrain from setting the building on fire?

-JM