Be True To Your Skoal

It’s the sort of thing that makes you mad enough to spit!

I speak of Tennessee’s attorney general (Paul Summers) bullying country singer Gretchen “Redneck Woman” Wilson into toeing the politically correct line. Wilson had been waving a can of Skoal smokeless tobacco during performances of her new song “Skoal Ring,” but pressure from Summers caused her to snuff out the routine.

I’m not a user myself, but I still think smokeless tobacco gets a bum rap. Here are 11 good things about smokeless tobacco:

1. No more having to haul fabric samples to the store when shopping for paint. Just flash your “pearly yellows” at the clerk.

2. Smokeless tobacco has spawned some other great country songs: “Stand By Your Spittoon,” “He Stopped Brushing Them Today,” “I’m Mopping The Floor Over You,” “I Go Out Expectorating After Midnight,” “I Was Pre-cancerous When Pre-Cancerous Wasn’t Cool,” and “You Were Always On My Gums.”

3. By giving the term “smokeless” a warm, fuzzy meaning, smokeless tobacco opens the way for other benign products, such as smokeless rear-end collisions, smokeless alimony payments, and the whimsical smokeless kick in the groin.

4. It gives the Average Joe a chance to keep up with the bragging at class reunions. (“I’m trying to see how fast I can run the marathon.” “I’m trying to see how fast I can make microchips process vital defense data.” “I’m trying to see how fast I can get nicotine into my bloodstream.”)

5. It’s always neat to have products whose chief selling point is “This is a perfectly legal product, darn it!”

6. Smokeless tobacco holds out hope for men who might otherwise have trouble finding women. If Gretchen Wilson is turned on by a man who still needs an oral pacifier, she’d probably go wild over a guy who throws temper tantrums and uses adult diapers.

7. . It gives recognition to the real he-men who don’t take any bull from anyone, except, of course, from tobacco industry executives.

8. Smokeless tobacco teaches humility. You become better at eating your own words, because, hey, they taste pretty much like everything else.

9. When they find crossword clues for “oropharyngeal tumor” and “gingival recession,” can-a-day Copenhagen users can crow, “Ha! I knew those without blowing five bucks on a crossword dictionary!”

10. If smokeless tobacco can hold on to respectability, nostalgia buffs may yet see a resurgence of the fine art of emptying the chamber pot in the street.

11. Smokeless tobacco lures all 34 carcinogens to your stomach lining so you can fight them there, on your own terms, instead of on American soil. (Thanks for that one, Dubya.)

And thank you for letting me vent. As a reward, we’ll close with a musical number. . For your listening pleasure, it’s Willie and Julio. “To all the girls I’ve grossed out before/By spewing my saliva on the floor…”