I've read a lot of op-eds and magazine pieces recently that were dedicated to lamenting the Maryland smoking ban. The ban has been seen by some as the murder of a facet of American life. Gone is the iconic smoky pub, the mystery evoked by hazy, dim lights, cold beer, a cigarette and abject, soul-numbing depression.
But luckily yours truly has been writing some brand new jokes tailor-made for a post-smoking ban world. So if you ever start to feel like individual freedom is slowly flopping and asphyxiating at your feet like a dying trout, here are my very best so-a-man-walked-into-a-bar style-jokes-for-the-post-smoking-ban-city.
1. So Sir-Mix-A-Lot walks into a bar looking for big butts, but he can't find a single one!
2. So a man walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Hey, where are all the smokers?"
And the bartender says, "Outside, buddy."
And the man says, "Outside, whaddaya mean, outside?"
And the bartender says, "Outside. Maryland law, as of Feb. 1, 2008, no longer permits smoking inside bars. So if you want a smoke, you need to go outside. Secondhand smoke is a real killer ya know."
The man didn't know, but he walks outside with his Camels anyway and has a smoke. He flicks his the butt of cigarette into the road but it's still smoldering, so he walks to the gutter to stamp it out. Just then, a drunk driver swerves and hits the man.
The driver had been drinking at that same bar earlier and was coming back to get his wallet which he thought he had left at the bar. He hadn't. His wallet was still in his pocket. But the universe sure has a funny way of working, doesn't it?
3. So this really hot woman walks into a bar, and the bartender cheekily asks her to leave because she is "smoking." She puts out her cigarette, utterly missing the humor.
5. So a man walk into a bar at 1 in the afternoon because he's a raging alcoholic and doesn't care about smoking at all.
6. So a terrorist walks into a bar with a concealed spray bottle full of kerosene with the intention of blasting it in the face of the first cigarette-smoking infidel he sees, sending them both to the great hereafter.
But the terrorist is blind so his plan would have been impossible anyway, despite the smoking ban. He should have thought this scheme through, for a lot of reasons!
7. So these two guys are really hitting it off in a bar, but one keeps complaining that he needs a smoke. The other guy says, "Whoa, man, you've got an addiction." But the music was so loud, the smoker thought he said, "Whoa, man, you've got a dick shunt."
He wasn't totally sure what this meant but thought it implied his genitals were broken and must be a hip putdown. He walked away, leaving his new friend feeling invasive and catty. They both got over it!
8. So a priest, a rabbi and a monk all walked into the Den and felt very out of place despite the smoking ban. They all went home wondering what made them think a smoking ban would make them feel more at home in an urban bastion of iniquity and debauchery.
9. So the famous racehorse Cigar walked into a bar and the owner told him, "Your kind ain't allowed in bars no more."
Cigar wasn't sure if he was referring to his name, that of a smoking product, or the fact that Cigar is a horse and thus not allowed in bars. Cigar took a massive, horsey dump on the floor and lit his pipe anyway because he's a giant horse and doesn't care what anyone thinks.
10. So the ghost of Henry David Thoreau walks into a bar with a pack of cigarettes and the intention to sit at a table all night smoking, civilly disobeying a law he feels is morally reprehensible. But when helpful patrons start filling him in on the years of medical research linking cigarettes and Big Tobacco to government corruption and disease, he began to rethink his plan.
Thoreau's ghost becomes so internally conflicted that his soul supernovas and he collapses into a black hole upon himself, dying a second time and effectively destroying the space-time continuum,. This second death functions in the new universe created by his collapse as a rebirth. He instantly appears alive in the bar and is worshipped by all as a demigod having civilly disobeyed the laws of quantum physics.
He get laid four times every night for the rest of his life despite living in a dumpy shack by a stagnant pond.
