Smoking ------------------------------------------------------- A Life Lesson by Ned Sane

Darla opened her eyes to a gray morning in the big city. Her thoughts were as foggy as the air outside her twentieth floor window. She reached toward the alarm clock, shut it off, and then grabbed her cigarettes. The first one of the day always tasted the best. The second was almost as good. After the third cigarette she got out of bed and into the shower. The smooth, warm wet spray made her feel good. She quickly dried off and celebrated her good mood with another cigarette.

Then she ate breakfast.

Following the meal, Darla took in a leisurely smoke. She then did her face and hair in between drags on the next burning slice of heaven.

Darla locked her apartment door and headed for the elevator. Even after all these months, she was still not used to it. The twenty-floor descent was just not an easy feeling for Darla. In that elevator and everything. It made her nervous.

That morning she was alone inside the elevator. Although it was not allowed, she lit a cigarette while the elevator dropped. She reached the lobby and made her way outside to the sidewalk. The big city was alive, as usual, and that sudden rush of adrenaline caused by the metropolitan throb prompted Darla to suck down another cigarette while walking to the bus stop.

As she reached the bus stop she realized that she was early that morning. The bus would not arrive for several minutes. She reached into her handbag and, much to her dismay, withdrew the last cigarette from its pack.

A panicky rush overtook her thoughts.

She knew that she must get another carton before catching the bus. The bus ride to work would be thirty minutes minimum. The time passed so much faster with a couple smokes. She glanced once more at her wristwatch. Without much of an inner debate, she decided that she still had time to get a carton at the drugstore across from the bus stop if she hurried.

She was standing next to several people huddled near the bus stop signpost and wooden bench. She was about to cross the street. First she looked to her left.

Panic blasted into her midsection. The bus was only two blocks away. She checked her wristwatch once again. The bus was not really early. It just was not slightly late, as on most days.
Darla's body began quaking with a desperate need. That need would not be denied. She leaned forward, ready to sprint across the busy street and into the drugstore.

Percy was pressing upward on the steering wheel with the tops of his thighs. His hands fumbled with a cigarette and lighter. He suddenly heard tires screeching. At the same moment a woman sprinted directly in front of his car. Unfortunately, Percy's feet were too far from the pedals to react quickly enough.

The thud was an ugly sound.

By the time Percy's car had stopped, the woman was mashed onto the street behind his car.
Later, as the medics were lifting Darla's body into the ambulance, Percy was shuddering through an explanation to the police. He kept stressing one particular fact, between deep draws on his cigarette, that the woman had just leapt in front of his car. He really had no chance to stop in time. The police realized that Percy was quite shaken by the incident, so they asked him to please accompany them to the police station where he could calm down. He agreed.

On the way to police headquarters, in the back of the cruiser, Percy proceeded to fry three cigarettes. He figured it would help him calm down. At the station, he called his boss to explain the situation and get the day off from work. His boss agreed and urged Percy to try and settle down. Percy agreed and lit up another cigarette as he hung up the telephone.

Later he returned to his apartment building. He was ascending the 39-story edifice in the elevator, when he suddenly realized that he had smoked his last cigarette in the taxi ride from the police station. He had mistakenly assumed he had one more pack in his briefcase.

The sudden, horrific realization caused Percy to somehow lapse back into the shock of the accident. A sheet of sweat slid onto his forehead. He began slapping at the elevator buttons randomly. His hand eventually struck the red emergency stop button. The elevator obeyed promptly.

There was a woman sharing the ride with Percy. Needless to say, she became very upset at this point. She demanded an explanation:

"What is going on here?"

Percy whirled around and screamed, "Do you have any cigarettes?"
Of course, the woman did indeed have some smokes. But she was not about to share. She figured that she would just as soon stick forks into her own eyes as share her precious cigarettes with this inconsiderate maniac. So she lied:

"No, I do not."

Percy panicked. He was somewhat tall. And as he jumped, his arms whacked at the emergency escape hatch on the ceiling of the elevator. The lady then realized that she would rather be alone in that elevator than with this imbecile. So she gave Percy a boost.

He stepped into her cupped hands and launched himself through the newly opened hatch. He pulled up and dragged his body through the small opening and onto the top of the stalled elevator. Once she was sure that he was completely out of the elevator and standing on its top, the lady pulled the emergency button back out to its normal position.

The elevator jerked to life and began to rise once again. The woman then squatted low, and with all her strength, jumped upward. She managed to grab the edge of the emergency hatch door and pull it down as she descended. The door slammed, sending a rattle through the steel walls of the elevator.

The woman jumped up once again, grabbing the handles to the hatch. She gripped onto the handles and hung in that position, preventing Percy from opening the hatch again.

The elevator continued rising. The lady became even more anxious as her hands perspired against the metal handles. She was determined to escape that death box before the lunatic discovered her cigarettes.

Unfortunately for Percy, the lady lived on the top most floor. Consequently, the elevator was headed to its upward limit in the shaft.

Equally unfortunate for the lady, a human body is an excellent conductor for electricity. So as Percy's body was being smashed between the top of the elevator and the steel framework at the top of the shaft, a massive amount of electricity was humming from the power box, through his body, and arcing into the elevator support cable.

Within seconds, the cable severed and exactly 19 seconds later the lady was pounded to hamburger at the end of a thirty-nine-story plunge.

Moral: Cigarettes will Kill you (and others around you)