In case you didn't hear the first time

I don't get smoking.

Well, maybe I do get smoking. I guess it's not hard to see how some misguided insecure teenagers in poor company could get started on something stupid. It's the people who are going to die who keep on smoking that I don't get.

Patients have lost their legs because they smoke. They lie wasted away on hospital beds because all their fat and muscles have been cannibalized for energy, except for their massive neck muscles that work overtime just to keep them breathing. They've lost their fingers because they smoke. They can't even hold onto their cigarettes anymore because all they have are either sutured stumps or black shriveled stumps.

And they still won't quit. They bitch about how none of the smoking cessation adjuncts worked, how they tried 300 times and still can't shake the habit. What kind of lame ass excuses are those? If I was in a steel cage slowly filling up with water, and I'd tried to pick the lock 300 times already, you could bet your last breath of air I'd be still trying to pick the lock until the end.

While these patients die, they suck up money. They need to be fed, oxygenated, watered, cleaned, drugged, monitored, fussed over by doctors, nurses, and surgeons. If these patients leave the hospital, the government will have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on their care. Not only that, but those patients occupy valuable beds that could be used to treat other patients who have medical issues that don't result from smoking.

And it's my money. It's all of our money. Instead of buying myself a new park, a better school, a space program or whatever, I bought myself a dying patient who can't or won't stop smoking long enough to realize that it's not his health I really care about when he says he wants a smoke. It's already too late for this one. I care about everybody else's health. The money this patient uses on cigarettes helps get other insecure teenagers smoking someday down the road, and before long they'll be in here just like this guy.

God dammit. Stop smoking! You're pissing me off.