Op-Ed: If Smoking's 'Bad,' Why Do I Get More Fresh Air Than You? Riddle Me That When I Get Back

This is a straight-out response to all of my critics, co-workers, and anyone else talking against cigarette breaks: how dare you!

Let me ask you, what is a 15-minute break here and there without a cigarette? Think about all that exposure to sun and fresh air that I get to enjoy 10-15 times a day (20-25 if I'm feeling nervous). I am the one living healthy here, absorbing all the vitamin D and clean air, and fresh air.

People ask me: “Well, how come smoke in your car is not OK, but smoke in your lungs is perfectly fine?”

You are asking me...me, why I don’t smoke in my car? Lemme tell ya something: you don’t know absolutely anything about anything! For one thing, smoke stays in seats, and my wife does not like it. When it stays in me, she cannot smell it, if I stay ten feet away from her—which is a normal thing with the progression of every marriage. Are you married? Have you lived as long as I, so far? I didn’t think so. Stick to your "coffee addiction," buddy. I'm out here wheezing in the fresh oxygen.

And don’t start me on cigarette butts, because you are one butt of a joke. I can discard cigarette butts out of my car because I can! Do you understand that? Why would anyone keep cigarette butts in their car? What is wrong with you? They smell and my wife would not want that. She doesn't like me! It looks like you have more smoke in your head than I have in my lungs. There are plenty of roads to absorb all the trash coming out of my car, but I like this car and cannot make it dirty. They don’t even put ashtrays in cars anymore. All that space is taken by cupholders, and you can’t put trash in cupholders. Nobody does that.

Now you will probably ask about my lungs, how I have only one pair of them, and well... grow a pair! You only live once, as they say, and there’s no need for me to worry about it because my lungs will last until I die. Plus, our superb health system can cure me of anything, we all know that. Do you think I would let those hospitals and resources go unused? There must be something wrong with you then. There will always a bed in the hospital for me.