As I mentioned the other day, I’m sick. The cold hit me Wednesday like a thousand-pound phlegmhammer and knocked me out of commission until Friday, when the fever finally broke enough for me to stop weakly croaking for whiskey and / or death.
However, it’s four days later, I’m still coughing like Linda Lovelace after they yelled “cut”, and I have no voice whatsoever. Normally, these kind of symptoms don’t hang on to me for this long, but I guess I have to admit I understand why it’s happening to me. Given the current arctic weather pattern that’s fallen on Boston, I suppose I just have to bite the bullet and blame the capricious whim of every motherfucking non-smoker reading these words right now.
You see, you douchebags made it illegal to have a cigarette indoors anywhere in Massachusetts except in a private home. Of course, I can’t smoke one in my private home either, but unlike you non-smoking fucks who kicked me outside with a secret ballot, my girl had the common decency to ask me not to smoke inside after agreeing to pay half the mortgage and to blow me whenever I ask if it’s convenient for her.
Which means that if I want a cigarette, I need to go outside in -22 degree windchill to get my nicotine, giving me a lung-freezing agony and a desperation to get inside that could only be more powerful it it was motivated by the urge to lobotomize HAL 9000.
And don’t you dare ask me, “Well, why don’t you just quit?” Because I’m addicted, stupid. You don’t ask a twitchy junkie why he doesn’t stop shooting up into that gangrenous arm, do you? Of course not! He’d kill you! And yet you have no qualms about preaching to someone with a more powerful addiction, who’s also holding a self-contained, perfectly eye-sized fire. Morons.
If history’s any guide, now is when you start getting self-righteous and defensive: “Well, better that you go outside and stay sick then make us sick your your filthy, dangerous secondhand smoke! You don’t have the right to endanger our lives with your ugly, deadly habit!” Well, let me address your concerns in order.
First: Go fuck yourselves.
Second: Assuming that I’m willing to stipulate that secondhand cigarette smoke is, in fact, hazardous (Which, by the way, I am not. But if you’re the type to believe any Goddamned study, I just heard about one that proved that your dick will grow if you send me a thousand dollars and promise never to vote again), do you know how many people in the United States supposedly die of lung cancer from secondhand smoke every year?
Three thousand. Out of three hundred million. Meaning that you have a 0.001 percent chance of being killed by my secondhand smoke. It’s almost ten times more likely that I’ll run you over with my car or blow your fucking head off. Particularly if you don’t shut your noisehole about my smoke.
So in a nutshell, it’s okay to kick me out of the building into subzero temperatures because you’re afraid of the 0.001% chance I’ll make you sick with secondhand smoke… thereby prolonging my incubation of a cold and / or flu so virulent that’s, to date, it’s taken down fully 20% of my co-workers since Thursday. That’s a trade that’s up there with selling your spleen to buy elephant insurance for your house.
I’d laugh, but it hurts to talk. And since I need to go have a smoke, dissenting opinions can be sent to the dumpster I’ll be shivering behind.
[tags]banning smoking, cold and flu, secondhand smoke, junk science, EPA, dark humor[/tags]
I don’t blame your girl for agreeing to blow you. With the amount of Jack Daniels you consume, a person could get a serious buzz from that stuff.
Lisa, I’d like to buy your magic elephant insurance!
Oh, and stop letting your co-workers push you around. A well timed lifting of the back of your shirt, exposing the ivory grips of a 50 caliber Desert Eagle usually does well in the Shut Your Fucking Mouth department.
At least, that’s been my experience.
Timmy – That’s what I keep telling her, along with the fact that I would imagine it’s got the same smoky undercurrent as that damn $80 scotch she likes, thanks to the cigarettes. However, half the time she tells me that, when she wants to get her Drink Going, she want more than one shot every two hours. That, and Laphroig never asks her to pretend she’s Batgirl.
Noctivigant – Believe it or not, my employer has experience with at least one employee displaying that kind of behavior. Which means they have experience with it, and a procedure in place, which means it’s not scary to them. That’s why I’ve started asking certain co-workers to pretend they’re Batgirl. History tells me that terrifies people; I see it happen all the time at home.
Asking me to be Batgirl doesn’t terrify me.
Asking me to be Batgirl while you pretend to be Jim Gordon terrifies me.
And I still don’t get why I have to wear the batgirl costume. The beer gut doesn’t exactly lift and separate, you know? Still, I suppose it’s better than Dharmender, who has to wear the Harley Quinn costume.
Amanda – Oh, come on now! Barbara Gordon’s been paralyzed from the waist down since the Joker shot her in The Killing Joke. She wouldn’t even know the Commissioner was there!
That said: when I tell you to keep your legs still, that means KEEP THEM FUCKING STILL.
Lance: Just shut the fuck up and wear the damn Batgirl suit, okay? And for the love of GOD, stop saying, “Holy (insert word here), Batman!” That’s what ROBIN says, and it makes the whole thing feel weird and dirty.
…at exactly what point did I lose control of these comments?