Talk:Cigarettes

Cigarette talk creeps back into the series in W&E. It's not as bad yet as SA, but it goes well beyond the occasional texture-adding remark in GW that actually served to help the story by reminding us of things that would normally be beneath the reader's notice, but that the characters are well aware of. Even that would be too much today, with us all burned out from the never-ending cigarette rants in SA.

I don't know why I didn't think this a few years ago but now I'm absolutely shocked and appalled by the fact that all these people keep smoking. If they're so disgusted by and unhappy with the product, why not give it up? If they take no pleasure from it. . . . I like beer, but if a bartender or liquor store clerk or party host told me that he was out of everything except Budweiser and the even worse swill the college kids guzzle by the gallon, I'd do without, unless there were other, extenuating circumstances that would make the drinking pleasant in spite of the drink. I wouldn't buy a case of Keystone, take it home, and sit around by myself drinking it.

And less still would I scrounge through someone else's recycling bin looking for discarded cans of Keystone, and try to knock a few drops loose into a plastic bottle. Samuel Goldman's indignity alternately filled me with disgust and sorrow. I guess that's what being the target of a genocide will do to someone, but he still could have kept a few shreds of dignity in lieu of a few shreds of tobacco by doing without. Turtle Fan 19:48, August 1, 2010 (UTC)