Nothing Says Stop Smoking Like A Cemetery

nichtraucher (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nothing is better than a midday walk. Having a bit of time during lunch, I decided to get some much-needed exercise. I walked up the street, through a parking lot and into the area around the neighboring office building. There, next to that office building, sat a graveyard. Not a metaphorical graveyard: an actual, real life, genuine graveyard.

It’s real.

It wasn’t big, but inside of a stone fence sat a dozen or so headstones. It was a grim scene. On the north side, a gravestone had fallen up against a tree. In the distance, I saw a couple large black birds flapping their wings like they were waiting for something. They might have been vultures, but I don’t exactly know what a vulture looks like. If they are big and black, I would bet that was them.

This struck me as odd. I mean, I’ve heard of an office building being a place where dreams go to die, but they very rarely incorporate actual dead people into the landscaping.

I’m sure it was initially a well-intentioned decision. It is very rude to dig up the dead and move them just because they were inconsiderate enough to allow someone to bury them in a place that, decades down the road, would become home to an office park. It seems, though, that the owners of these buildings have begun to use that graveyard to their advantage.

There, to the south of the graveyard, sits the building’s smoking area.

In an effort to stop people from smoking, the FDA has spent a great deal of time developing warning labels that scare people away from cigarettes. They say things about Carbon Monoxide and cancer and heart disease. This is all well and good, but I think the FDA could take a cue from the owners of this building. Instead of writing a warning, why not make people see what it can lead to?

The answer is simple: pass a law where people are only allowed to smoke near a graveyard.

Just imagine it. You are desperately needing a cigarette. Odds are you do not have a graveyard in your house, car or yard, so you are forced to find the nearest cemetery. That is very inconvenient. Once you finally find one, you are forced to endure the judgmental glances of those who are there to visit the burial site of their loved ones. You look up and see mysterious black birds overhead that may or may not be scavengers of some sort but are very ominous. (I seriously need to study up on my Ornithology.)

If that isn’t bad enough, let’s take it up a notch. The FDA could place speakers in the ground. At the sound of a lighter being flicked, a voice would be heard speaking in a ghostly warble.

“NooooOoooOoooooOooo! You’ll end up just like meeeeEeeeeeeEeeeeE!”

I’m not sure how, but if there was some way to have a zombie-like hand pop out of the ground offering them a light, it would really hammer the message home.

If all of that isn’t enough, someone could just train pumas to attack anyone smoking. It’s about time someone put pumas to good use.

Would this stop smokers? Judging by the people at the picnic table I saw today, probably not. Smokers really like to smoke.

It’s creative thinking like this, though, that we really need to get in our government. I guess what I’m trying to say is I should be elected to office in the next election. My mind is full of brilliant ideas like this. There is no one who could get the government functioning like I could.

Knowledge of birds isn’t a requirement for congress is it? Man, I really hope not…

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