As the burly man sat in the restaurant booth with his pals, he couldn’t wait to finish his lunch of a double-burger and large over-salted fries. But then again, what was the rush—he was on someone else’s dime. As he swallowed the last of his luscious lunch and gulped the remainder of his caramel carbonated cola, he could hardly set down the large paper cup proudly displaying its logo, before moving on to the task at hand.

It was the moment he’d been waiting for…he slowly reached into his front shirt pocket and removed the prize he’d anticipated. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes, removed one of the sweet treats and hurriedly lifted it to his eager lips. He went on to click the lighter, but had no response. Before he could even blink his eyes, he gave his lighter two more quick clicks and raised the flame to the awaiting roll of nicotine laden tobacco.

This doesn’t seem like such a bad picture, does it? Unfortunately as the unhealthy chunky chap is inhaling, there are probably many others in the restaurant who are cringing. The rest of the restaurant population probably even includes children, the elderly or even worse, people of poor health. But does he care? Of course not. After all he has every right in the world (or at least in Jackson) to light up whenever and wherever he pleases.

I know you probably think I’m beating a dead horse, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why in the world smokers feel like they can sit in a restaurant, where people are trying to enjoy their meal, light up a cigarette and blow their cancer causing smoke into the atmosphere as if they owned the air we all breathe. Sure, a smoker has rights too. He/she has every right in the world to impair his/her health, but that right also assumes responsibility.

Jack and I thought we had the answer. Remember the 1976 movie, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble? Due to a terminal disease a boy had to live in a bubble without contact with the outside world. I guess the idea of the bubble was so popular, that the 47th episode of Seinfeld paid homage to the concept.

So that’s how I got the idea for the Burley Bubble. This particular bubble would be like an antique scuba diving helmet. Not only would it benefit the people who don’t want to be exposed to the second-hand smoke, which causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year, but just think of the money smokers would save. There’s no telling how long they could keep re-circulating the smelly smoke from one cigarette. And no one else would have to “benefit” from the smoker’s stench. But alas, after further investigation, I’ve concluded that the Burley Bubble probably wouldn’t work. After all, how could the smoker get the smoke inside the bubble to begin with? But I’m not giving up…maybe we need to come up with a bubble that will encompass the smoker’s whole body….the Body Burley Bubble.

Well, I’ll keep thinking. But in the meantime, the dinner bell is ringing for Jack and me to go to lunch, and I just can’t wait to see how long it takes the self-seeking smoker to light up his cherished cigarette today.