Hit the bricks.

Some non-smokers are shocked when they ask how much a pack of cigarettes costs and I tell them "around four bucks."

"Isn't that expensive? How can you afford that?" Yeah, it is expensive, which is why, with the exception of the past week, I've been rolling my own, which runs me about eight bucks a week, if that. (By the way, my cigarette consumption has remained at roughly ten a day, give or take, since I decided to cut back.) I can afford it because it's one of the few luxuries I allow myself, along with a couple-three albums or books a month and a few sixers of beer.

Now that gas is three bucks a gallon and climbing, I can ask people who drive "Isn't that expensive? How can you afford that?", but the odds of them admitting that driving, like smoking, is a luxury, are slim to none.

It's all right for folks to tell me to quit smoking, but God forbid I tell them to quit driving.