Now That's What You Call Denial

I love Toronto taxi drivers. Some of the best, most uplifting and novel-worthy stories I have ever heard have come from Toronto cab drivers. They come from all over the world, many of them highly educated, many of them with heartbreaking and inspiring tales about how they ended up here. I usually leave the taxi feeling humbled and awed.

Tonight I had a guy from the Ukraine. He told me his first name but I can't remember it. It was clear, however, that he couldn't be placed in the "highly educated" category of Toronto taxi driver. He was smoking heavily when I got in the cab, tossing the butt out the window when I sat down. He had a voice like the voice of a 65-year-old man who'd smoked two packs a day since he was 12 -- which he said was pretty much exactly what he was.

And he insisted to me, the whole way home, that "smoking does not cause cancer." When I told him my own father died of a massive stroke at 67 after smoking heavily since he was 14, he said: "That is just coincidence. Probably he ate the wrong foods." He also insisted that the Number One killer of adults is stress, depression and anxiety -- which means, by the way, that I am going to croak any minute now; this could be my last post!!! -- and that since cigarettes calm his nerves and cheer him up, it is crucial that he continue to smoke them.

I was almost impressed with the sheer magnitude of the denial. It's like continuing to believe the Earth is flat, or that Paris Hilton is a classy and elegant young lady.