Smoking Bandits

You walk passed them outside the store, you see them in the street, you see them gathered at the park across the street from the high school. Yes these are the people with a smoking habit and I am blogging about them today. There are two reasons I am talking about this. First of all my poor neighbors had their car broken into last night or this morning. It sucks! The part that makes her the most mad is that the criminal smoked in the car long enough that the car now reeks of cigarette smoke. And she has a baby who too will have to breathe in that sick air. Isn't it bad enough that they were in the car, but now there is a lingering reminder.

The other reason is my nonjudgemental reason. I was leaving Walmart (why do I ever go there?) today and there was a woman in the car next to mine smoking and my first thought was oh great Braxton is going to get smoke in his lungs. Now call me an overprotective mother, but I hate even the idea of things polluting his lungs. Then as the woman caught the look of my face I am sure I had a moment of pity. I realized the chains that are strapping that woman to that car so that she can have her smoke and still she has people walk by and she feels the shame of her dirty habit. One that she just can't give up. At that moment I smiled at her and felt a sorrow for her trapped soul that I can't explain.

As I was contemplating all this I remembered my youth. I must have been 4 or 5 and I grabbed some cheetoes and pretended to smoke them. My dad promptly scolded me and told me that we don't even pretend to smoke. I don't know how well that one worked because a few years later I recall lighting a piece of rolled up paper at give the true appearance without actually smoking. I put that paper up to my lips and was so clever to inhale. Funny how even though it was only paper it still put smoke in my lungs and I don't recall that as being very fun.

So I've decided that when I am confronted with teaching my kids the ills of smoking they will get an abundance of information. I will tell them, you wouldn't want to smoke for real because it makes you stink and now one wants to be around you because you stink. It makes your food taste terrible. It makes you cough and breathe horribly. It's really hard to stop smoking even if you want to, and it's just not even worth pretending. If you pretend then satan gets into you mind and makes you curious and then you may try it, and if you try it then your body thinks it needs it, and it does not!

I just can't imagine the hurtful stigma that you have to endure with this horrible habit. No non-smokers want to be around you because you do stink, and there are so many health drawbacks with no benefits. Besides all that it's like the ad's say... smoking, it's a deadly road!