Oh, I didn't find it particularly grumpy. I hear worse things said about smokers 100 times before breakfast. :)

Isn't there a Stephen King short story where all the people who go outside to smoke (the Ten O'Clock People) survive by all being outside of the building when whatever horror it is hits?

I haven't read this short story, but all my New Yorker friends had it as gallows-humor conventional wisdom that the vile habit must have saved many lives on 9/11/01.