Stone Life

My MacBook-photo-taking-skills are really, really poor, as evidenced to the right, but trust me, this picture does not do the view from my desk justice. Quickly, the 'smoking tree' has become one of my favorite features of the surrounding office-park landscape that is my one refuge from the confines of my hospital-florescent lighted, desk cluttered, child smelling cell, room 128. Several times a day the lonely tree to the far right is inhabited by the social outcasts that still hang on the sole bastion of their youth: tobacco.

I love watching these rebels, as they puff their cool-sticks, flipping the proverbial 'bird' at the rest of the Atkins-infested, trans-fat-depleted, pilate-yoga-ites, slaves cowering before the Surgeon General's scare tactics; I respect them; I envy them. I often want to point them out to my students, but this view is mine, and I do not think they would appreciate it. These filtered-cavaliers are evidence that high school never ends. The cool kids are still the cool kids, undoubtedly sitting around the latte machine inside the air conditioned office, maybe eating a Power Bar to sustain them between their lunch of a single piece of toast and their dinner of low-carb beer: "I don't want to lose my abs". The nerds stay inside the safe confines of their cubicles, working through lunch, willing themselves towards success between every quick bite. The smokers, they are still smokers; only, instead of hiding behind the school, or lurking behind the bed of the tallest truck in the parking lot, they are forcibly exiled to the tree farthest from the building, a safe distance from the public at large, zoo animals on display.

Why, societally, have we turned so vehemently against smoking? The health risk? Obesity is at an all time high in this country, but we claim to be health conscious? Does the lady eating the supersized cheeseburger meal while slurping down soda number three for the day really need to concern herself with the safety of her precious lungs? Is there some sort of body-math that I am not understanding? - heart, kidneys, colon are one thing, but lung trumps them all.
Is it the annoyance of the smell? God forbid one should be discomforted by the personal choice of another. If we are going to adopt this stance of eliminating elements of society based upon the disruptive effects on others, let me add to the list: no more public cell phone use, Doritos must be eaten outside of confined spaces, children shall hereafter be muzzled in movie theatres, airplanes....public, dogs must be euthanized, Ellen and Oprah must be eliminated by any means necessary, and, perhaps most importantly, rubberneckers on the freeway are subject to the same fate as Oprah and the canines.

One day I am going to risk the barbed wire and join my fellow revolutionaries. Proudly we'll stand (or, more than likely sit, because our lung capacity won't be able to handle too much movement), we will light up our leaf-filled torches ala Lady Liberty, and we will celebrate the freedom of poisoning ourselves to our heart's content (or discontent - depends if you are asking me or my heart, I guess), and we will boldly proclaim, "You can send us to the edge of the parking lot, you can stare at us like monkeys in a cage, you can sneer, you can take our dignity.....but you will never, cough, cough, take our freedom!!! cough, cough....