No More S'mores!

We need to ban S'mores.

I have determined that this delicious campfire dessert is a menace to society and for the greater public good it must be outlawed.

I came to this realization after doing research on the dangers of smoke. While second-hand tobacco smoke tends to get all the attention and generates the most public outcry including the proposed ban currently before the Cape Girardeau City Council, I read that the EPA estimates smoke from burning wood to be potentially more hazardous to your health than that Marlboro you may be clutching in your finger tips while you read this.

The particular reason has to do with particulates.

Burning wood tends to throw off very fine particulates that when inhaled are reputedly up to 40 times more chemically active than tobacco smoke. I don't know all the science behind this claim, but this is apparently not a good thing from a health standpoint.

So basically, if you see your neighbor trying to roll-his-or-hers-own with clippings from the yew in their front yard because they can't afford to buy their favored tobacco product, you should run over to them as fast as possible and swat the makeshift cigarette out of their hands. It would be for their own good.

Thankfully, very few people are so desperate that they are trying to smoke their shrubbery, but at the rate that tobacco excise taxes are increasing it would not surprise me if that became commonplace in the future. However, we won't worry about that particular menace at the moment.

But I feel we have no time to waste in outlawing S'mores.

Some of you may be trying to figure out how a roasted marshmallow and a Hershey bar squeezed between two graham crackers could possibly be a menace to society.

OK, I admit it. They're actually not. S'mores aren't even a menace to individuals unless you have an eating disorder and can't stop consuming them until the entire box of graham crackers in your pantry is empty.

However, while S'mores are not necessarily a menace to society, the preferred process required to make a S'more is.

To make the best S'mores you need a raging campfire, the kind that singes your eyebrows off if you try to roast a marshmallow with anything shorter than a 6-foot spear.

And, of course, a fire like that just spews huge amounts of particulates into the atmosphere; fouling the air and leaving a cloud of death and destruction to continue poisoning the environment long after the embers have gone out.

While banning S'mores may not completely wipe out all carcinogen-causing killer campfires, I'm confident that it will make a huge improvement in our national air quality.

For one thing, who would want to have a bonfire if you can't make a S'more? Oh sure, there will be some people who still light up to tell ghost stories or even for warmth on a crisp fall night, but they're in the minority and between you and me, I've got their number.

I've got a master plan to legislate wood smoke out of existence and that's part of phase two when we deal with leaf burners, wood burning fireplaces and anyone who happens to like smoking their shrubbery.