But Chewing Will Kill You...

Smoke Break Saves Woman From Falling Tree
(AP) ROCK HILL, S.C.
(April 18) - Smoking just might have saved Brenda Comers' life. She said she had just finished washing dishes Monday and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette when an 80-foot oak tree crashed through her roof, landing across the sink where she had been standing just seconds before.

Never mind the questions that arise naturally out of this news lead: 1)Just how many dishes must you be washing when a smoke break is in order at some point? OR 2)How addicted must you be when you can't make it through dishwashing without a toke?

In yet another example that Jesus doesn't care if you smoke, Brenda Comers can count on a (shortened) lifetime supply of Marlboros for the free publicity. If Brenda had been like so many of South Carolina's gentility, she'd be reported dead whilst unburdening herself into the sink-side Nascar Spit Cup.

We here at SMTS recommend smoking. We think it weeds out the weak-gened part of the species. Look at Bette Davis, for example. She at least appeared to smoke well into her 130th year. And George Burns. And that guy from the tracheotomy commercial. When others squealed in horror at the sight of a man sucking smoke through his blow-hole, I thought he should have been given a spot on "That's Incredible!" hosted by the lovely and pansexual John Davidson, Fran Tarkenton and a woman. (We knew....even way back then....we knew.)

Chewing, however, is verboten in the SMTS household and circle of acquaintances. We equate it to shitting. We don't mind knowing that you do it, but we prefer you not to do it in a see-thru cup and carry it to important functions. Like a Bar Mitzvah, for example. (We don't have Bar Mitzvahs in Kansas, to my knowledge. That was just to include you other folks who grew up with inside toilets.)

After our last near-death experience (we've made the trip so many times, we can tell you that The Light is simply an ill-placed luminary in a heavenly Taco Bell parking lot), we decided it best to haul the quasi-corpse back to the homeland, so that it wouldn't suffer the indignity of riding in the underbelly of a Southwest Airlines flight as its last travel experience. We made a one-year layover in Suburbia before putting aside the last of our expectations for life and buying a home in Mayberry, pop. 3,000.

It should be noted that we are unequivocally pleased with the choice after three years. However, in the first week, we made our first trip to The Grocery Store. Why they bothered to name it (CountryMart) is beyond me. There ain't but the one for 15 miles in any direction. "The Grocery Store" is how it is and will always be labeled. They could call it "Nekkid Chicks and Jerky Sticks" and folks would still just call it The Grocery Store. But I digress.

On my first trip through The Grocery Store, I was met in the canned goods aisle by a gentleman of country persuasion. Here, my facts may fail me. It might have been the bread/chips aisle. They've switched them in the last year. Mostly, this serves as entertainment for a few months while you watch the old folks squeeze cans of creamed corn until it dawns on them that This Isn't The Bread Aisle Anymore. Then they clatter over one aisle to squeeze something else. But I digress...

In said Canned Goods Aisle, I was mindin' my own business...like you do.... looking for Green Beans - cut in hunks, not longwise, as God intended. This nice gentleman excused himself in front of me, I smiled, and he hocked a brown loogie into a see-thru Dairy Queen Moolatte cup.

I left my cart in the Canned Goods Aisle and shopped Out Of Town for the next month. Oft times, when in Rome, one cannot do or tolerate what the Romans do. So we take a weekend en provence to right ourselves. The point is, chewing is bad for you. At the very least, it should not be done where people are having vain imaginations of culinary success. Or where people of proper upbringing might happen upon you. Or in North America.

Smoking, on the other hand, may well save your life. Just ask Brenda Comers of Rock Hill, S.C.