A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 

up in smoke

Thanks, Gov. Pataki.

Thanks, insurance industry.

Because of you guys, starting in July, Ezra won't be able to enjoy a smoke with his suds at the Chanticleer. Actually, it's more like, enjoy a suds with his smoke.

Ezra is one of a vanishing breed of American smokers. Going the way of the dodo bird, the cougar, the buffalo, the cowboy, the Native American. Eventually everything in America disappears. Except the insurance companies.

Will the Chanticleer itself eventually disappear? Become just another empty store front in downtown Ithaca? Home to a future pizza parlor or another Asian restaurant? People have been going to that dive their entire lives. Smoking and drinking. Drinking and smoking. Playing a little pool, listening to old Merle Haggard tunes. How will the old timers adjust? Besides the waiting room at their doctors, where are they going to hang out now?

Let's hang out in the parks! The warm weather's finally here. All the smokers in Ithaca can descend on Buttermilk Falls Park at one time. If we tote and puff enough, we can create our own weather formation. Park rangers will think there's a forest fire or something. Can you imagine that? 5,000 smokers in close formation, puffing away, creating little piles of butts dotting the landscape that resemble ant hills on Mars, or clogging the streams and waterways with their filters.

Hey, they wanted to kick us out of the bars and restaurants. Let them enjoy the quaint pleasures of the Chanticleer. We're going to be out in nature, living it up! What are they going to do about that? Ban smoking outdoors? Have park rangers going around like Smoky the Bear, telling us to put that cigarette out? Put health warnings on trees? (Well, they could put smokers on the rez. Let us earn our living by making Native Smoker crafts with old cigarette filters, put a wooden smoker outside of Simeon's.)

Just because we can't play the juke box or shoot pool outdoors doesn't mean we can't have fun. We can build rafts out of all those empty cardboard cigarette packs. Ezra has about eight saved up on top of his PC. He's ready to go white water rafting down Cascadilla Creek. Or go over the Ithaca Falls with his crash helmet, cigarette in one hand, paddle in the other.

There's lots of fun we can have. We can organize a one-lunged race and see who's the fastest smoker to make it up Buffalo Street. You get a carton of Camels and an honorary degree if you win. Hey, the Marlboro Man was always an outdoors type. Before they strapped him to his iron stallion.

Let's not be disheartened, fellow smokers. Eventually the buffalo did came back. While we can't depend on the big tobacco companies (those wimps!) for support, we can still count on our allies in France. (Vive la Gauloise!) Or Eastern Europe where every minister of health smokes three packs a day. If things get bad enough in the ole' USA, we can always move to Europe. Love it or leave it. Vote with your lungs.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 6:11 AM