All Entries Tagged With: "No tobacco smoking in hell"

Hell Bans Smoking

   One of the last vestiges of puffing has gone by the wayside today as Hell announced a moratorium on tobacco smoking slated to begin in September. After that date anyone caught smoking will be subject to further disciplinary actions, beyond the daily tortures and deprivations common to the place.

     Unlike most spots on earth there is nowhere to step out for a smoke near the confines of Hell. Cigarettes, easy enough to find there, had crept up to $20 per pack on the Black Market in Hades. According to unreliable sources, pit demons felt that workers were abusing smoke breaks and taking too much time to get back to hard labor details costing them money.

     Hell wasn’t so bad before,” said one condemned man. “Every Tuesday was poker night even though we don’t have cards or chips down here. Friday was martini night even though we don’t have gin or ice. At least we had cigarettes.”

     Smoking, thought to have been tolerated beyond these fiery gates for millenniums, was recorded by Dante during his legendary visit to hell in the Middle Ages. Sinners stuck in the place tell of smoking tobacco in seances. Former Vice President, Dick Cheney, a regular visitor to hell during the Iraq War, said the place smelled like a bar room after a prairie fire. He observed that “everyone was smoking, some of them two and three cigarettes at a time”.

     The decision comes as a shock to most hellions who considered smoking a sacred right in the land of fire and brimstone.

     “I just never expected this sizzling dump to embrace political correctness,” said the condemned source.

     The decision was purely mercantile. The bad angels that run hell don’t care about health and general welfare. They are simply under continued pressure from resident insurance industry lobbyists who insist that their industry is losing money on insurance claims related to smoking. Hell’s new seat belt laws originate from the same bent morality cruises.

     I guess we’ll all have to put up or shut up,” cried one angry woman who says she still has cartons of Marlboros stashed.

     “I just can’t imagine going through eternity without a cigarette,” she said.

– Gabby Haze