What are you smoking?

It's not strange at all to see a group of people hanging around the bus stop, smoking. And you'll probably have to sit next to one of them. No biggie. But this morning, I saw someone smoking something you don't see very often, unless you hang around in very strange circles.

There was a guy sitting on a bench, reading his newspaper, and smoking a pipe. No, he wasn't Sherlock Holmes, and yes, it was still stinky. A pipe! What, seriously? Warning: I'm about to rant a little bit. Here it is, the 21st century, smoking is on the decline because people are starting to realize just how dumb smoking is, and this guy is still smoking a pipe. When I was a kid, my dad--a respiratory therapist--had a box of preserved lungs of both normal people and smokers. There's a huge difference in the lung tissues just from that one choice. Kind of weird, I know, but that explains something about me, doesn't it? Not only that, but in fourth grade, we did experiments in science class to observe the effects of tobacco ourselves. I've had three grandparents die from the direct effects of smoking. I'm pretty sure that most people now have stories like that. And yet, people still decide to smoke themselves to death.

To quote Pepe the King Prawn, "Smoking is very bad for you, okay?" If you smoke, you really should quit, and today's as good a day as any to start your new life as a non-smoker. Until then, I'll still write about you on my blog about the silly things I see, riding on public transit.