It’s 20 degrees outside.  The wind is blowing like a banshee, making the shutters slam against the side of the house like a homeless man begging for shelter.  The snow has been falling for the past 7 hours making deep drifts against the front porch.  It’s winter in New Jersey, and Margaret steps outside to light up.  As she raises her cigarette stained fingers to her lips, she shivers against the cold.  Inhaling deeply, she closes her eyes, reveling in the suffocating ecstasy of the first puff.

For 24 years Margaret has braved rain, sleet, and snow for the sweet taste of her tightly rolled tobacco friend.  Nothing has stood in her way.  Not the blizzard of ’89.  Not the hurricane of ’94.  Not the windstorm of ’03.  Nothing.  When policemen, government officials, and teachers flee indoors for refuge from the storm, Margaret bravely opens the rickety door to her modest South Jersey home to have a smoke.

Shielded by nothing more than a bathrobe and a ratty, old pair of slippers, Margaret proves that she is one of the dedicated ones.  It is not an innocent dedication, however.  No, it is a dedication fueled by an uncontrollable desire for the sweet nectar of nicotine.  But even though it’s a guilty addiction, it is precisely what makes the dedication so strong.  It makes Margaret, and the millions of other people entangled in a love affair with tobacco sticks, the most dedicated humans on earth.

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