Pipe Anthropology

Yesterday, during our important waiting-for-the-entrees walk down Main Street (yes, it really is called "Main Street"...) Daniel noticed the forensic remains of some clear lung-pollution on the sidewalk. Although most people might call these artifacts "cigarette butts," Daniel called them "pipes" (I'm in no hurry to correct his terminology), and pointed them out with a fair bit of horror, and then followed up, in a more scientific spirit, with the observation that some pipes are white and some pipes are orange.

This made him curious about the demographics of smoking. He was trying to figure out whether a lot of people smoke overall, then he asked more narrowly whether girls don't smoke much. Since I'm a propagandist and a liar - quite ready to lie on the subject to promote the impression that practically nobody smokes at all [although realistically, I don't know the numbers...], I quickly concurred with Daniel that most girls don't smoke. So then he wanted to work out the details more precisely:

"Is there only like one girl who smokes?"

It makes sense that if the phenomenon of smoking girl(s) exists, but most girls don't smoke, then perhaps there's only one (in the entire world) who does smoke.

If I see this solitary smoking girl, I'm going to give her a good talking-to.

(May 27, 2011)