Reply #43: Well, everyone thinks they're the exception and that they single-handedly trump the majority...

[Crankie Avalon]

...mention something like smoking or SUVs or anything like that in a place like this and there will always be a flurry of "well I'm a smoker/an SUV driver and I'm not that way so none of the others are like that, either."

I was a smoker for about seven or eight years and I remember well the stink of smoke lingering in my clothes all day, the nicotine burned fingers, the dingy and discolored teeth (where I had always had white teeth before I took up the habit), and I was just a pack a day smoker...the heavier smokers I knew then and still know now were and/or are even worse. If you don't see that in yourself, well, remember that the stinky kid in school (I'm sure you had one) didn't know he stank, either.

It took quite a while for the orange burns on my fingers to go away once I quit, and even longer for my teeth to come back to the right shade. It's a person's choice if they want to be that way, but what I said was it's surprising to hear Barack Obama's name in connection with this because he seems bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and freshly scrubbed...which if you're honest you'll admit is not really the usual smoker's temperament/look. He's probably only some half pack or "social" smoker, anyway.

"Self-righteousness" has nothing to do with this and you might be throwing that in to make yourself feel better. I really don't care about what smokers do to themselves so long as they don't make everyone else have to partake in it. The unfortunate thing is, they often do. For example, I'm a New Yorker who rides the subway every day. These subway trains let us out underground and we walk up flights of stairs to get back out. These are narrow, enclosed, confined spaces, and there are very often smokers who don't even have the decency to wait until they get out into the street before they light up. So, everyone behind them has to breathe that in while we all slowly walk up the crowded flight of stairs. When someone is jonesing so bad that they don't even have the manners to wait an extra minute until they get out into the open street to light up and thus not bother the people around them quite as much with something that should only impact on their own health and hygiene, that's true addiction...and a true lack of consideration.

Anyway, it doesn't make me any more or less likely to vote for Obama. Good day to you.