i propose!
laws, by-laws, amendments, and other legal sounding rules:
* smoking is strictly prohibited while in the company of an ex-smoker.
* the scent of smoke is only allowed in open, public areas where said ex-smokers may enjoy such wafts at their leisure or choose to cough loudly while secretly enjoying the afore-mentioned public wafts.
* driving to work only takes thirty seconds, and never reminds you of your favorite cigarette of the day.
* people have to leave the room to smoke alone, never in groups ... and they may never do so while the conversation or group momentum is in full swing.
* the entire concept of after sex cigarettes never existed because of the internal emotional pain it causes ex-smokers to think about the best cigarettes they ever had.
* meals are abolished and replaced with light, unsubstantial snacks which are not nearly satisfying enough to warrant a cigarette.
* ashtrays bite off your hands.
* cigarettes immediately kill you instead of luring you into a false sense of security over many decades before finally collapsing your lungs like all those fucking annoying "truth" kids told you about when you were nineteen, when you could have quit while you were ahead.
* coffee shops are now really hip places to hang out with friends, read poetry, and chew celery sticks.
* coughing comes while you're doing the evil deed of smoking, not after you've quit for a month and been a really good sport about the whole thing and three months later you're still coughing even though you haven't even thought about a fucking cigarette but you could really use one right now just to stop the damn coughing.
that's just my idea of a perfect world.
it's not the bitterness that stuns me, merely the stronghold i've created from self-deprecating cynicism.
