by Drake Knight
Note from Editor: This may seem a bit dated in today’s world, but it was written in 2005.
I was at work, while taking my smoke break, and what was really odd about that is the fact that I don’t smoke. But, there I was, in the smoker’s lounge, puffin’ on a cigarette.
I thought I could do it. What was a little smoke? I could handle it. How hard could it be? I lit up and began to inhale. The experience didn’t last long. I was soon the laughing stock of the smoke-filled cubicle of a room that was known as the smoker’s lounge when I began hacking out what felt like an entire lung. I think something actually came out of my mouth in the form of liquid, which immediately caused many people in the room to leave.
I abruptly snuffed the cigarette out in an ashtray and mentally cursed the tobacco companies for making such a product. Not only were they killing us all by providing such deadly objects of joy and entertainment but, worse, they were providing an excuse for folks to get out of work!
Needless to say, getting out of work by taking a smoke break was my biggest gripe about smoking and it was the sole reason for my episode of trying to light up for the first time in the smoker’s lounge, which I paid dearly for during the rest of the night and most of the following day with the nastiest taste in the back of my throat that I have ever had since I once ate a slug as a kid. But, that’s another story.
The smoke break…this infernal concept has driven me crazy since the first time I entered the workforce and found out what it was. It has driven me crazy due to the fact that, as I already said, I don’t smoke. There I am, working hard every day. But, do I get a break? No, I don’t. I’m expected to keep working. (Of course, this says a lot about where I work, which is also another story) The folks that smoke, on the other hand, can stop working so that they can utilize the fifteen or twenty minutes or so it takes to fill their lungs with smoke, whenever they want!
To me, that was a very poor deal for the rest of us – the majority – who do not smoke and cannot take repeated breaks for long periods of time. Coffee breaks were always encouraged for non-smokers but we had to bring the coffee back to our workstations. Besides, I don’t always drink coffee. I decided to do something about the problem.
My first attempt at remedying the situation, as you well know, was to try and join the ranks of those that smoked. I thought I could just smoke while at work. I wouldn’t have to smoke on my time off. I already explained what happened with that plan.
My next plan was similar to the first in that I would appear to be a smoker. Only, this time, my smoking would be modified. It would be modified in the way that my cigarette wouldn’t even be lit. I would just hang the cancer stick from my lips and laugh and chat with everyone else who was smoking, as if I was taking on the same amount of poison in my lungs that they were and being rewarded for it with a break.
This didn’t last for long either, as the conversation with others never really got started because everyone was too engrossed in simply staring at me with dumbfounded looks, trying to figure out why there was a cigarette hanging from my lips that was never lit, while I stood there just laughing and chatting away.
I realized, at that point, that I had to be more creative.
The next day I declared to my boss and closest of co-workers, all who do not smoke, that I was going to take another smoke break. On the way to the smoker’s lounge, I heard muffled comments about how I never used to smoke.
Once back in the lounge, I received the same apprehensive stares that I had been subjected too the day before when smoking an unlit cigarette. I immediately began trying to alter that by holding up a bag of nuts and tearing off the top of the bag, explaining what I was doing.
“Nuts anyone? I’m taking a nut break. Heh-heh…after all, you are what you eat, right?”
I continued to chuckle, eat nuts, and attempt to blend in with a group of people who were very reluctant to try a sample of my nuts. As I stood there eating nuts, like a fool, my boss walked into the smoking lounge behind me, covering his nose and mouth, blocking the stench of the room from entering any orifice of his head.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m…taking a nut break?”
“Get the hell back to work!”
“Damn.”
What was I to do?
The next day I thought I would try something a little more rash. I brought in a portable television set. When I was ready for some relief at work, I decide to join my new circle of friends in the smoker’s lounge, all who had already taken several breaks during the day to puff on cigarettes while this was my first break.
I entered the smoker’s lounge, portable television set in hand, and headed toward an empty chair in the room. Placing the television set on the only small, rickety table in the room, I raised the television’s antennas and began to flip through channels.
“Hey guys, Days of Our Lives is on! How ’bout it? Wanna watch?”
The door flew open to the lounge and slammed against the back wall.
“Dammit! What the hell are you doing?”
“Um, taking a TV break, boss?”
“Get the hell back to work!”
“But…I don’t smoke and I….”
“No kidding you don’t smoke so what the hell are you doing not at work! Watch TV on your own time! What are you thinking!”
As I left the smoker’s lounge, head hung low and portable television set in hand, laughing accompanied my exit. At least I had provided some entertainment for those who didn’t have to work. If only I could find a tolerable way to try and slowly kill myself like they were, I would be allowed to take a break too.
That was it! That’s when I had the epiphany that what it took to get a break from work, whenever I wanted, however long that I wanted, was to simply attempt to slowly kill myself! Who would have thought? I then realized that those people in the smoker’s lounge were true geniuses!
The next day, I came prepared. In my pocket was a hand-held stun gun that was capable of emitting a low-level electrical charge. (I could never seriously hurt someone, even for self-defense, thus the low level) The morning had crept by as slowly as it always had and, after the smokers had taken at least three, 10-20 minute long breaks before lunch, while the rest of us continued to toil, I decided the time had come to take a break myself.
I left my desk and headed to the smoker’s lounge. I was bound and determined to be able to take breaks if I had to kill myself to do it. And, apparently, that is what I was going to have to do, literally.
In the lounge, I placed myself in the same chair I had the day before with the TV. I reached in my pocket and pulled out my zapper, instantly followed by many comments.
“So, what kinda gimmick you got today…ha-ha-ha!”
“Gonna listen to the radio today? How about the weather forecast?”
“Maybe you could spend this time doing yoga! Ha-ha! Yeah, yoga!”
“Ha-ha-ha!”
“Ha-ha-ha!”
Every comment that I heard preceded mouthfuls of smoke and rank breath, amid an already smoke-filled, tiny room with walls stained an ever-present shade of yellow.
“No,” I replied. “I’ve got this.”
I held up my shock device and displayed it for everyone to see.
“I figured if killing yourself slowly is the only way to get a break around here than so be it. Check it out.”
I turned the shocker on and flipped the switch that sent a string of electricity back and forth between two, metal points. Everyone’s reddened, smoke-filled eyes widened, especially after I placed the electrical current on the nearest arm of a fellow break-taker that I could find.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”
Frank, I think his name was, began to convulse violently, dropping his cigarette to the floor, which he soon followed, foaming at the mouth.
“HOLY…what the hell are you doing….”
I zapped that person too.
Soon, Frank had a friend on the floor next to him, shaking madly with his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
I yelled out to my new friends but they didn’t seem to acknowledge what I was saying.
“Isn’t this fun! Whoo-hoo!!”
“You’re crazy! Someone call the cops!” A woman who had just told me that I was crazy ran out the door, also dropping her cigarette on the floor. Everybody else began to back away from me as if I was an insane killer.
“What? What’s wrong with you guys? I thought this is what it takes? It’s no different than what you’re already doing? It won’t kill you, unless you keep doing it again and again. See? Frank can handle it a BUNCH of more times!”
I electrocuted Frank again, just as his continuous twitching was beginning to settle down. Everyone in the room began to panic and scream, as they all ran for the door, shoving and pushing one another, fighting to get out of the small room before the person in front of them.
“C’mon guys,” I said. “I thought we were having fun here! We get to take a break if we do this! We can keep doing this all day long! See?” I began to demonstrate my sincerity on the matter by turning the shocker on myself. After all, when it came to smoking in the lounge, most people chose to do it to themselves, not force it on someone else.
“SEE! WHOOOO-HOOOOO!”
Several volts of electricity coursed through my body, as I hit the floor next to Frank and the other guy. I shook uncontrollably, as the cigarettes that had fallen on the floor soon ignited the carpet into a blazing fire.
When I began to regain control of my body, I looked at the other two next to me, as well as several non-smokers who were now rushing into the room, even though it was smokier now than ever before, due to the massive amount of flames.
“OH, LOOK! SEE! EVERYONE WANTS TO TRY! THIS WILL WORK! BREAKS FOR EVERYBODY! WHOOO-HOOOO!”
I shocked myself again and again, as the fire consumed the entire room and eventually began to burn down the entire building. The zapper had to be pried from my hands and I was forcefully removed from the building. I later found myself in the back of a police squad car, watching the fire department attempt to put out the inferno that used to be the building I worked in. I was still very excited and shaking from all of the electrocution. I was also very happy that more people were able to take a break with me and that my plan had worked!
Much later down the road, I began to spend my days in a hospital for those that were deemed to have serious mental deficiencies, as was decided by a judge in a court of law.
My wish had come true. I was now able to take such a large break that it was as long as the entire day and night, every day and night! My “break room” was the most luxurious I had ever seen, complete with padded walls and floors for plenty of comfort. I was even provided with a jacket that held my arms up for me. Talk about taking a break! And, the air was fresh and clean; I didn’t even have to smoke to take this break.
I had finally got my wish to be able to take a break and I could do it day in and day out, each and every day, every week, and every month, all year long!
Now, unfortunately, I just wanted to get back to work.
The End
Originally posted 07/13/2005
