Briefcase Full of Butts

Damned Drug Addicts

Smoking cigarettes used to be cool – Nat King Cole, Humphrey Bogart, early Bond Sean Connery. But now it’s just sad, especially for smokers under 50 years old, and there is no reason to smoke if it isn’t cool. Now I see no difference between a crackhead huddled in a corner firing up that rock and a smoker huddled in a corner designated off campus smoking kiosk firing up that butt. There are people in my building that get on the elevator with their cigarette and lighter already out. I work on the 29th floor. Sometimes I want to “Christmas tree” the elevator buttons because poking drug addicts with a stick is funny. It’s sad because smokers don’t even like being smokers anymore, but they’re addicted to nicotine so they’re stuck. They all complain that they need to quit but they can’t. Even the shame of doing the “Smoker’s walk” across the street to stand in hundred degree weather so they can smoke crappy cigarettes and accelerate their slow, painful deaths can’t motivate them to quit. I smoked socially for about three or four years, long enough to learn to distinguish between good cigarettes and bad. I never understood cheap or light cigarettes – hell, I didn’t understand filters. Smoking is a vice. The goal is to ingest a drug and enjoy doing it. Why do people smoke light cigarettes when they cost the same as full flavor cigarettes, and study after study shows THEY’RE JUST AS DANGEROUS. They don’t reduce the risks of any of the diseases associated with tobacco use. They don’t make your breath or clothes stink less. All they do is harsh your nicotine buzz. Why do people smoke cheap cigarettes? Is it a wino’s mentality, “I don’t care what it is just give me my fix”? I started out on short Camels and moved on to Lucky Strikes because they were “quality” products and they were the coolest. They were the brands of the Rat Pack and longshoremen. Can you imagine if Bogart was smoking Marlboro Ultra-Light 100’s in Casablanca? No, you can’t because you know that Bogey wasn’t a bitch. If Bogey had been smoking Benson & Hedges in Casablanca, the Axis powers would have won WWII in reality and we’d all be speaking German. But that was then, when a man’s cigarette brand said something about him. Now they just say I’m a bum, I’m a teenager, or I’m European, no matter the brand. Bruce Willis is the line of demarcation. He’s the last cool smoker. When John Travolta smokes he looks gay. When Brad Pitt smokes he looks gay. When Tom Cruise is in a movie he looks gay. Bruce Willis is it, and the last movie he looked cool smoking in was The Last Boy Scout, which came out in 1991.

It’s over, no more smoking. When I walk my baby girl past the hospital, and we see – and smell – the smokers it’s pathetic. They don’t even talk to each other anymore. They just stand in the heat and humidity wallowing in their self-hatred. How does someone work at a hospital in 2008 and still smoke? I would have a completely different take if cigarette smokers had the attitude of cigar smokers. If they celebrated their suicide like Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, cigarettes would still be cool.