Sitting in The Official Bar after work, The Ford was struck by how many of his companions/barmates were smoking.

Why?

Smoking, the last The Ford heard, was seriously uncool. After all, folks keep outlawing it. Which, come to think of it, might be what's making it cool.

Then again, maybe smoking is uncool the way casual sex and binge drinking is cool; a little bit is fine, but we all have friends that push the lines too far, and then we're walking them into a bathroom of the opposite sex at 3 a.m.

(Note: The Ford is not actually endorsing casual sex OR binge drinking. Or even endorsing casual sex AND binge drinking. Though the two seem to go together often enough.)

Anyway, here's some thoughts on why smoking SHOULD be cool:
1.) Demonstrates mastery of fire.
Think about it; every cigarette lit suggests the unliklihood of civilization returning to a pre-fire stage when men were men, women were women, and pretty much everyone was food for wild animals. Bonus points for lighting a cigarette with matches. Double bonus points for lighting them with lightning or sticks rubbed together.

2.) Demonstrates high level of hand-eye coordination.
Again, the repetitive motion of bringing hand to mouth suggests one's coordination is excellent; perhaps this skill will be passed on to one's offspring, someday prducing a humanity skilled at bringing a paper tube from ashtray to lips. Assuming all smokers manage to reproduce before dying of the dozens of illnesses brought on by smoking.

3.) Cigarettes double as weapons in case of bar fight.
Granted, a lit cigarette is a pretty lame weapon in a fight against anyone other than an 8-year-old or a sleeping person. Unless you go for the eyes. This is just one of the reasons The Ford wears glasses: anti-cigarette technology. The Ford supposes a lighter could also double as a weapon, but it lacks reliability, unless your opponent has been kind enough to douse him- or herself in gasoline prior to challenging you.

4.) Yellowing skin/teeth of cigarette smokers possibly fashionable.
OK, not really, but yellow does go fairly well with blue, as color combinations go. And blue may or may not be "the new black," depending on how cool The Ford is.

5.) Increased resistence to weather.
Again, this skirts the idea of smokers creating a master race, but has anybody considering that by forcing almost all smokers to exit the building to get their fix, we're actually creating a group of people that fear no weather, save floods. (It extinguishes the cigarette, don'cha'know?) Not to mention they ENJOY lightning. (See #1)

So there you have it. It's probably a good thing smoking is so uncool, 'cause if it wasn't all we'd have to look forward to in 100 years is a race of supermen who spontaneously create fire and fear no rain.

Y'know, something like Washingtonians, but with cooler friends.