Yet another reason to avoid Brevard County

Okay, I admit it. I'm a little harsh on Brevard County, Fla. I mean, granted, it's the home of the Stupidest Fucking Morons on the Planet and all that, but after all, it's also the home of my two children (and the birthplace of one). Hell, I haven't lived there myself in nearly three years. So maybe I ought to let up a bit.

On second thought: NO.

The most important story in Brevard today, based on its placement on the front page of Florida Today? The Obama smackdown of GM? Some big local crime or scandal?

Nope. It's the impact of the new tobacco tax taking effect tomorrow. And it sure wasn't hard to find a representative sample of Brevard's finest citizens to gripe about it.

"It's a rich man's luxury now because poor people can't afford it," Kim Dean, 38, a Port St. John telemarketer, said Monday. Dean started smoking when she was 9 years old and smokes a pack a day.

"Money's tight, and there are going to be a lot of angry smokers out there," said Dean, who stocked up on cigarettes Monday for herself and a friend at the Knox McRae Food Store in Titusville.

The chance to save money ends Wednesday, when the 62 cents-per-pack federal tax takes effect.

Hold on there a second. She's 38, and she started smoking when she was nine?! Are you fucking kidding me? Her lungs must look like Dick Cheney's heart, all crusty and shriveled up. I'm grossing myself out just thinking of it ... almost 30 years of smoking, generally a pack a day, and she's not even 40 yet? Hell, I'm surprised she's still alive.

But forgive me if I don't shed a tear for the "angry smokers out there." They should think of it more as an incentive to quit, like a woman quoted later in the article who plans to give up smoking and save the estimated $3,100 annually a pack-a-day smoker spends on cigarettes. And I'm no Carrie Nation on this, I assure you -- I've been an occasional cigar smoker for almost 20 years myself, and the taxes are increasing on cigars from a nickel a stick to 40 cents. Still, that only increases the cost of a box by $7.00 ... and yes, it pales in comparison to the 62-cents-per-pack cigarette tax hike. And I don't smoke a box of cigars a day ... I don't even smoke a box in half a year, I imagine.

Anyway, that's what passes for front page news in Brevard County. Guess they won't be adding tobacco parties to their "tea parties" anytime soon.

But ... smoking since she was nine? Damn.