She stepped outside to smoke and the cigarette began to complain about the plight of its kind. We are oppressed, it said. We are pariahs, it continued, and we reject our role as straw man for the cancer industrial complex. While she did not necessarily disagree with the cigarette’s point of view, its continuing monologue made smoking difficult and so she extinguished it, a revolution snuffed out before it ever began.

Prior to this incident she used to walk and smoke at the same time every night. Not wishing to spark revolt, she soon gave that up.

After all, she thought, routine will either save us or kill us…or perhaps both, and possibly at the same time.