"We don't sell Tic Tacs, we sell cigarettes. And they're cool, available, and addictive. The job is almost done for us."
- Budd 'BR' Rohrabacher (JK Simmons) in Thank You For Smoking
Ten years ago, you would find half the faculty and other workers outside at one and a half hour intervals. There'd be great, stand up containers for your finished cigarettes; now there's only random soggy butts littering the ground 10 metres or more from any entrance. Not many people smoke around here, or if they do, they're chickenshit about it. Vanity, vanity, vanity. Screw it. I'd rather sit huddled on a picnic bench segregated from all that may be offended. It's quiet, at least.
It's funny though, at the call centre, there'd be a haze of blue smoke emitting from the back alley. We were segregated there, too, but it was not like being an outcast. You always got the best gossip there, and people traded back and forth, from cigarettes, to quarters for the snack machine, to recipes and passing off umbrellas. It was a friendly, social area, and more than once, we'd see non-smokers make their way back to catch up with the daily news.
Like Mason, and.. uh... Mason, I'd like to quit smoking. I'm not a daily smoker anymore, and don't even smoke a pack a week, but I'm not going to kid myself, I'm as addicted as those pack a day smokers. It might not call out that often, but I can't imagine ever wanting a beer without a cigarette, and coffee seems to go hand in hand with them as well.
I'd hate to be cliche and say that starting January 1st it was going to happen. I've tried it before and failed, but one of these days, hopefully, I'll be able to one day say that I'm a non-smoker, too.