Cigarettes don't kill people, Wendy's kills people.

Back in 2005, I was travelling across the country with my brother. Eschewing food tourism, we settled for the most convenient options which ended up being a lot of fast food. For those who haven't taken a road trip; in a fast food restaurant off of the freeway, hundreds of miles from anywhere remotely familiar, is where existential despair and physical disgust meet in horrible and orgiastic exultation.

In North Carolina, we stopped at a Wendy's. A gust of stale air, reeking of boiling vegetable oil and Lysol, met us as we entered. After ordering, we found a table and waited. Finding an ashtray amongst the paper napkins and salt shakers was a revelation: "Good Lord, we can smoke in here?" It was the veritable dawn of the Sabbath at the end of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain.". The cigarettes we quickly lit exuded a most glorious smoke that formed a barrier between us and all the evil that surrounded. The malaise, the sickening odor, the acne-causing, oil-soaked air were all gone. Only the bittersweet tobacco smoke remained. We ate half of a lukewarm burger and left.

Today, smoking is banned in all North Carolina bars and restaurants. That life-saving ashtray in Wendy's has long since disappeared. There is no protection from the smell of oil, or from the despair.

Smoking tobacco suppresses the appetite. The same appetite that is responsible for our obesity epidemic. The same epidemic that has higher healthcare costs than smoking.

Let's stop the despair. Let's stop obesity. Let's have a cigarette.