Peculiar

I opened a fresh pack of cigarettes today, and realized that there was something I intended to mention the first time I saw it a couple of days ago which I find really, really strange.

Now we all know that I am the most die-hard of die-hard smokers. I have gotten quite used to the warnings on packs and the scare articles and all the rest of the non-smoking arsenal. But this one threw me.

I smoke a brand called Basic, which is just that - they're essentially bootleg Marlboros. I opened a pack the other day and it had a little piece of paper stuck in it, which I assumed was another of those "Look! This is what a diseased tongue looks like!" things.

But no. Basic has taken to putting in its packs little slips of paper with jokes and scrambled word puzzles on them, rather like old bubble gum packs used to do. None of these jokes or puzzles have anything to do with cigarettes at all.

I cannot even begin to tell you how confused I am by this. Is it some sort of underground movement to make smoking fun again? Are these little bits of paper imbued with a stealth stop smoking drug? Have the people who make Basic simply lost their collective minds? Or do they also make bubble gum, and are some six year olds about to get a nasty shock when they open that?

Love, Wendy