Somehow I escaped taking up smoking, even though almost everyone in my family does now or used to. I dated a girl for a while in high school who smoked, and I learned to overlook the smell/taste when I kissed her, but looking back, I don’t know how. (Uh-oh: I wonder if I will get in some retroactive trouble, since I just confessed to kissing a girl at OBI [an activity that is far less harmful to people and significantly less dangerous to buildings than smoking, but which is nevertheless not allowed there]?)
I’ve thought about taking up pipe-smoking, since it doesn’t smell as bad and I am an English instructor, after all. I don’t even have any jackets with elbow patches…I need to get busy.
Anyway, I think smoking cigarettes is a nasty habit, and I don’t understand how anyone can start with all that we now know about it.
But a sin? Illegal? You’ve gotta be kidding me. The ludicrousness of the whole idea is summed up in New York and other cities’ misguided proclamations that you can’t even smoke in a bar. If that doesn’t cry overkill, I don’t know what does.