Dear Ma’am,
While I was sitting on the train minding my own business, listening to my mp3 player that was maybe set a little too loud, I started to feel a cough coming. It was one of those coughs that I tried to swallow and suppress, but that failed miserably when I made that puke-face style of a cough that involved me hacking up a lung and potentially spitting some of my saliva in the direction of the weird looking kids across from me. You tapped my arm and just as I pulled my earphone out you gave me a sound piece of advice, “You should stop smoking.” Rather than sit there and take the advice, I decided instead that the one glass of beer I had was enough for me to go off on a tangent:
“Oh thank you! I noticed that you’re judging me based on the fact I smell like cigarettes and I coughed. Now that I’m reacting to this in a semi-negative tone, you must now be judging me and assuming that I’m a schizophrenic drug addict with a missing left testicle, which is mostly true, but the fact of the matter is you don’t know a thing about me, so allow me to tell you:
My name is Joe Renken and I’m 24 years old. I was born, raised and live in Quincy. I am against drugs and smoking, but on rare occasions, I will join my friends for dinner and will have an after dinner smoke. Tonight was one of these occasions. Now I’m not about to tell you how to live you life or what you should do, but I must say that if you assume I’m a smoker and go so far as to say I should quit smoking based only on a scent and a cough, I must say that in rebuttal, based on everything I know about you, I must assume you’re a nosy bitch who can’t keep to herself and must give her two cents about everything.
Truth of the matter is Continued…












































