I went to the gym today and an old lady got on the treadmill next to me. Suddenly an incredible smell of stale cigarette smoke waifed over the entire gym. It moved like napalm over our small YMCA village. I got to thinking about how much I used to smoke and how badly I must have smelled. How badly must my car have smelled, my house, my clothes? You wonder how smokers can stand it but the truth is they don't even know they smell bad. Like the old stank ass next to me, they are oblivious.

This is a message I want to send to all the smokers out there. I'm not going to lecture- there is no need to get defensive. In fact, deep down inside I am a smoker and always will be one. I started smoking at 13 and quit at 40, 2 years ago. I like smoking, I like smokers. I still think smoking is cool. I'm not kidding- I am the last American that still believes smoking is cool. If I was in high school I would start smoking all over again. When my non-existent kids start smoking, and they will, I'll ground them and lecture them but deep inside I'll say "yea, smoke up you will look so cool with a cigarette dangling from you lips". So this is not an anti-smoking bitch session but just some knowledge I've picked up over my 2 years of being a non-smoking smoker.

It stinks!

It really does. I know that when the mamby-pamby non-smokers wrinkle their noses at you as they walk by the billowing cloud of goodness that bellows from your lips you think "grow up you big babies- it's just a little smoke" I know you think those holier-than-thou, non-smoking, Polly-Purebreds are exaggerating but they aren't. It really smells bad. And when you chew gum to mask the smell you smell like spearmint and shit. It's true and it isn't the nice smell you associate with the taste of cigarettes. It smells a little like a bum's ass- not that I've smelled a bum's ass but it's what I would imagine a bum's ass to smell like. You can't cover it, you can't mask it, Febreeze does nothing, its there- always, it oozes out of your pours.

You think to yourself, 'I'm not getting laid because I'm past my prime, I'm older and less attractive than I used to be'- No! You're hot as hell! You aren't getting laid because you smell like shit. The only thing worse than having to walk passed your Pigpen stink-ass is actually having to kiss you. People want to have sex with you- but you smell bad.

I, for one, am all for smoking- I hope to smoke again- I am a non-smoking smoker. Keep smoking, light one up for me, but know that you do smell really, really bad.


* except for Jay- he doesn' smell like cigarettes at all- neither does Kate.