There are a lot of smells that I hate. One of them is cheap laundry detergent. They add abrasive smells to them to make people think they are making their clothes cleaner, to the point that they’re so strong that they slap people in the face. Then people start wondering why they start breaking out, and there’s suddenly this epidemic of chemical sensitivity that leads to the purchase of “free and clear” products without the eye-watering smells.

The kind of thing you should have gotten to begin with.

You might not actually have “sensitive skin”, it might be that your body has had enough with the cheap-o laundry detergents, and it’s trying to tell you to stop.

Another smell that I detest is most perfumes. I don’t know where women got the idea that wearing perfume made them more attractive. They didn’t get that idea from me. The problem is marketing, which is behind a lot of stupid purchases. To make matters worse, people get used to the smell and think they need to use more for the same effect, while the rest of us are overwhelmed by their eye-watering stink.

I know I said “most” perfumes, because some aren’t that bad. But that’s not intended as an escape clause so you can still wear your perfume on the chance that you’re not wearing the kind of trash that men actually have a problem with. If you want to smell clean, take a shower and stop covering up whatever smell you’re trying to hide.

What was it I was going to write about? Oh yeah, smoking.

Smoking is stupid, and people need to stop doing it. Even people who smoke say that they want to stop doing it, but they find it hard because they have an addiction. The fact is, nearly everyone recognizes smoking as addictive to begin with, with labels on the packaging itself serving as warning. If the packaging on the product that you consume contains a warning from the Surgeon General telling you that it can kill you dead, then maybe you shouldn’t have consumed it to begin with. But people are so short-sighted that something so obvious didn’t serve as enough of a deterrent.

People talk of addiction as a disease, now. Except that it isn’t, and those with addiction can stop using this victimhood platitude. Real diseases don’t require constant purchases in order to be maintained. If anything, they usually lead to the purchase of products in attempts to cure them, or at least alleviate their symptoms.

If you want to stop smoking cigarettes, just stop buying them.

I know how addiction goes, it makes you really want to do something. I know that some might be thinking, “That’s easy for you, because you’re not addicted to cigarettes.” The reason why I can put it into practice is because I have self control. Here’s the thing: you can decide not to do something, even if you really want to do it, and it’s better for your character if you realize that your self-control benefits you or society as a whole.

There are so many deterrents when it comes to smoking, but there are also many incentives to not smoking, like having more money. The median price of a pack of a certain brand of cigarettes including tax by state is around $7 (source), which was a lot more than I expected. If a person smokes a pack a day, they are flushing $49 a week down the toilet, or $210 a month.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind taking home $49 more a week in pay. With that kind of money, a person could buy a brand new video game every ten days. It would also help if you want something to eat besides macaroni and cheese.

I wouldn’t care so much about whether other people smoke if it weren’t for the smell that came from them when they did it. But their problems become everyone else’s, and complaining about it on some web page is a more pro-active solution than just “dealing with it”.

Speaking of, it’s ironic that when someone says “deal with it”, what they mean is just the opposite, which is more like “just shut up and take it”. I’m not going to just take it, because when I recognize a problem, I do something about it. And when that problem is you, you’re close to wishing you were someone else.

Smokers “deal with it” by going outside to smoke, because they know that no one else likes the way they smell, and they are being considerate of other people. Just kidding, they go outside because it’s a rule, and they don’t want to be punished for breaking it. Most restaurants don’t have smoking sections anymore, because they weren’t enough of a solution for the rest of us. So, outside with them. But when they go outside, they position themselves right by the door, so the wind blows their smell inside. Where there’s a way to defeat the intent of the rules that are in place, people can be counted on to find a way to do so.

Worse yet, the smell clings to just about everything that smokers go near, ruining the smell of clothing and even the upholstery of your car. It would be nice to go home to get away from it, but that’s hardly likely if you live in an apartment building, because when you open the windows to let in some fresh air (actual fresh air, not just spraying canned smells), there’s a chance that someone is smoking just outside, and it blows right in.

Because natural selection isn’t acting quickly enough on smokers, tobacco companies add various deadly chemicals to their products, because apparently tobacco companies don’t like smokers, either. Here are a list of a few common additives:

• Acetone – An industrial cleaning agent
• Ammonia – a household cleaning agent
• Arsenic – a poison found in pest control products
• Carbon Monoxide – an odorless toxic chemical
• Lead – a toxic metal that causes neurological damage
• Naphthalene – a toxin used in pest control products
• Nicotine – an addictive additive conductive to growth of tumors
• Tar – used to pave roads

This is the point where you realize that trying to get someone to quit smoking is like trying to convince them that huffing arsenic is a bad idea. It’s obvious to most of us why it’s a terrible idea with no benefits to speak of, but you’ll occasionally come across someone who will hear it and, taking another puff, would say “Yeah, so?”

In that case, what you’re up against is the sheer force of stupid. I encounter it frequently. Stupid drives with less care in the rain instead of more, views lottery tickets as an investment, thinks RAM is something you can download, makes financial decisions based on daily horoscopes, and pays to use YouTube. And stupid smokes.

Smoking is stupid.