I came across a website a day or two ago.

It gave me a good laugh and I played with it for a long time – at least ten seconds – before getting bored with it.

Now we are all familiar with the concept of searching for a shop that sells an item which we wish to purchase.  The Interweb is awash with sites that will find your desired item and point you to the nearest and/or cheapest retailer.

The site I came across does the opposite.

This site tells you where you can’t buy something, namely tobacco.

The site is interesting from two different aspects.

If I want to buy a packet of cornflakes for example, where do I go?  I go to a shop that sells cornflakes presumably.  It doesn’t matter a damn to me if they also sell butter as I don’t need butter and I shall just pass by that aisle.  So why on earth would I go online to find a shop that specifically sells cornflakes but not butter? 

The most interesting aspect of the site though is that it gives a glimpse into the twisted deluded mind of the Anti-Smoker Fanatic.

I would hazard a guess that 99.99% of the worlds’ population doesn’t give a flying fuck about smoking, cigarettes of tobacco.  They either smoke or they don’t and the only time anyone actually turns his or her mind to the subject is when he or she is about to light up.  The Fanatics are doing their best to remind everyone of the subject by plastering signs everywhere but they are now so ubiquitous that I doubt anyone even notices them these days.  They are also doing their best to indoctrinate kids with their fanaticism which will indeed increase awareness and more than likely will have the opposite to the intended effect – make kids aware of something and they’ll want to try it out of pure curiosity.

Our Fanatic though seems to spend every waking moment obsessing on the subject and is under the insane illusion that everyone else thinks the same way.

How many people are going to use this site?  How many sane rational people are going to actually go to the trouble to find a shop that doesn’t sell a particular item?

I presume the concept is that shops will suddenly discover a drastic fall off in trade due solely to this website and that they will close their tobacco section in order to reclaim their lost trade?  For this to happen, virtually the entire customer base would have to play the game and by using the website would transfer their shopping elsewhere. 

These people are certifiably insane if they really seriously think that people in their thousands are going to go out of their way to avoid a shop simply because it sells tobacco products.  If the shop down the road sells what you are looking for, are you seriously going to travel to another far less convenient shop just on the basis of a deluded principle?

These people really seriously need some professional help.

What they need is a nice quiet little room with nice soft padded walls. 

Maybe a little tablet or two?

And a cigarette to calm their nerves?