Cigarette Smokers Suck

I detest cigarettes. I just want to be clear on that, as it's important to note. This article isn't entirely about how much I despise cigarettes, however. It's not even about how much I revile the people who smoke them (I don't, even though I abhor the habit).

Rather, this article is my perspective on the whole matter of cigarettes, smoking and advertising campaigns against this repugnant habit.

First things first; I don't smoke. I did back-when, however, in my teenage years. It began sparingly; a few stolen packs of cigarettes here and there when I was thirteen, shared and rationed between three of my friends and I. This was all back when my friends and I thought we were being big rebels by choking and gagging, trying to be cool in any one of our garages at 2 am by taking big drags and inhaling it all.

We felt awesome. Even though we initially coughed ourselves sick, we got used to it pretty easily, but then one of our number got caught swiping a pack of cigarettes from a K-mart display. Hoo, busted, and big time!

Dirty bastard narked all the rest of us out, his parents told the rest of our parents and we all wound up going with him to his "Shoplifting is Bad" class as punishment. I tell you what, having to pay the $55 fee for that out of my allowance pissed me off, especially since it wasn't me that'd gotten caught doing anything; I was innocent! Well, I wasn't, actually; we'd all been stealing packs of cigs from gas stations and local retail stores to supply our rebellion, but it wasn't -me- that'd gotten caught!

Life was, that fall, just gross and unfair. Our buddy that ratted on us got the silent treatment for the whole first quarter of school for that, but then we forgot all about it.

Time, being the indomitable "unstoppable bullet" that it is, just kept plodding along. By the summer after that school year, we were back to our old ways, only this was the summer to beat all summers; we were in high school, and since we were all on sports teams (and generally pretty good at said sports), we got in good with a number of older teenagers, some of whom were more than happy to buy smokes for us.