What I See

Ok… I can’t write this blog without confessing one of my social sins.  Hi my name is Cindy (or MeCindyC or Cinders… I’m all of these people and more!) and I’m a smoker.  I’ve smoked for a really long time.  And I l i k e it.  For the record, being a considerate smoker is important to me.  You won’t find me arguing with those who say non-smokers shouldn’t be subjected to second hand smoke.   Just step into an airport smoking room if you need to know why… even smokers can’t stand to be in there very long!  The joke is, you don’t have to light up your own… just walk in the sealed room and start breathing.

There are a lot of places I don’t smoke.  I don’t smoke in a non smokers house.  I don’t smoke in my own house.  I don’t smoke in restaurants (it’s illegal in my state).   But on my back porch, in my car and out the back door at the office, I indulge in this terrible habit.   Standing outside restaurants to smoke isn’t below me… I’ll do it.  But I try to stand away from the walkway.

About two weeks ago, the place where I buy these tools of my bad habit tells me that Obama has slapped a new tax on cigarettes that goes into affect (effect?  MOM!  Help!) April 1.  Hmm… I hadn’t heard anything about that.  How does that relate, I ask the clerk, to the extra $10 on this carton you just rang up?  She claims she doesn’t know.

 A few days ago, the place I buy these from rings me up at another $10 over what I paid before.  In less than two weeks, the price of cigarettes has almost doubled.  But wait, I exclaim!  It isn’t April 1st yet! What’s going on?  All I get is rolled eyes and a comment… Yes, he says, I feel the same way.

 Honestly, I think I will owe these people my life.  Not the clerks, of course, they are doing their job.  I can’t be mad at them, or thank them, as they are just selling stuff the way they have been told to sell it.   But the stores who figured this would be a good time to up their profit margins?  I will thank them some day.  The cigarette manufacturers who have admitted to raising their prices ahead of the tax increase?  I will thank them too.  Obama?  I just might have to give him this one.  On a personal level, he has just triggered what might be one of the hardest but most important changes I will make in my life.

 I’m quitting on Saturday.  I’m pretty sure I’m about to give myself a $365/year tax cut.