Extra Breaks for Smoking Fakes

Smoke, Pray, Slack

Non-smokers need the same work breaks smokers get.

In this modern era of rabid irrational anti-drug hysteria, why do nicotine addicts still get those extra breaks for their fix? Cheap Dude, ex-smoker, missed them.

It wasn’t the nicotine; it was seven or eight minutes of restful staring into space, or assessing work/self/life, or talking nonsense with a co-worker/addict, or praying. (Who says you can’t pray while smoking?) Now that junkies are forced outdoors, sunshine and fresh air too!

In the slightly-less-bad old days, when everyone smoked, the boss’s habit often decided the number and duration of breaks. Convincing everyone to quit smoking may be a corporate ploy to make us all get back to work.

Better not to smoke, Cheap Dude agreed. But he has a plan for everyone who wants to bring back those extra breaks: pretend to start smoking.

Buy just one pack. Watch the known smokers. When they sneak off, waltz out with ‘em. If the boss gives you the evil eye, flash that pack, it’s your "hall pass." (Never open the pack, or they will be bummed and smoked, one by one.) “Secondhand smoke” is a delicious bonus with the extra goof-off time.

Cigarette smokers are an energetic bunch. A trash can is a few feet away.

%$#@!

If cigarette butts were made of gold, we’d all be praising god.

%$#@!

 

Martin Wartstew’s Hideously Cheap Hovel Decorating Abuse

These are a couple chunks of pine knot, broke off while being split. They are redolent of resin, perched snugly on a metal candleholder that almost never has a candle in it. Hopefully the fresh pine odor will mask the wood smoke back-drafting into the living room. Time to clean the stove pipe—but not right now.

Behind nature’s potpourri, family photos liven up a $10 (splurge!) painting when stuffed in the edge. Under it, a speaker, part of an antique oriental music system coated with an enticing grey dust. A dusty hut is a sure sign the inhabitants are happily doing something much more pleasant and/or important than “dusting.”