... No, do you mind if I fart?

Honest to God, I thought surely I had missed the golden age of chainsmoking in depositions. I'm coming up on my ten-year anniversary as a reporter, so thankfully I got to skip double-knit suits, wax dictating cylinders, and, best of all, spending eight hours gasping for air in the miasma of a carcinogenic haze with an odor vaguely reminiscent of a coal miner's ass. Well, as of yesterday, everything old is new again.

It wasn't enough that I had the distinct pleasure of spending 10 hours with a charming specimen who kept correcting counsel on the point that she lived in a "motor home" not "mobile home," like that somehow mitigated the fact that I needed a shower after merely sitting five feet away from her. No, that wasn't enough of a crap day. No, the high point came when one of the attorneys whipped out his pack of Camels (yes, Camels, not some sissy ultra-light coffin nail) and said "You don't mind if I smoke" -- more as a statement of fact as he was lighting it than a polite request for permission -- which then prompted everyone else in the tiny dank conference room to spark up as well.

This may be de rigueur in North Carolina or Kentucky, but this just doesn't float in Texas.

"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life. " - Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for a federal anti-smoking campaign