Happiness is for Suckers Like Me

Philosophers, pundits, preachers -- all of them have tried to tell us how to be happy in our mortal coils. While I greatly appreciate their thoughts on the matter, I have come to my own conclusions about the big H, and today I am going to share it with you, even though you didn't ask me to:  Happiness can be bought for five bucks at 7-Eleven.  I was truly, deeply happy for a few moments the other day when I had in my possession a fresh pack of Marlboro Lights and a cup of hot coffee that i had just acquired at said 7-Eleven store. With these items in my hands, I knew that the next few minutes of my life would be filled with pure sensory pleasure. I would get to feel cigarette smoke slide silkily into my lungs, and then chase that great feeling with another one, a sip of hot lightly creamed coffee slipping over my tongue and down my throat. Bliss! But, wouldn't you know it, right after this happy thought entered my brain and released a mega-dose of endorphins into my bloodstream, I was faced with the maddening reality of a match that wouldn't light after repeated strikes and a broken cigarette lighter. Shit! I wasn't going get to ingest that winning combination of smoke and coffee after all. Happiness, that fleeting moment of everything being just the way it should be, was jerked away from me, leaving me alone with an opened pack of cancer sticks and a rapidly cooling cup of weak, convenience store java. 
But have no fear and only limited pity for me, reader. Being the pleasure-seeker that I am and always have been, my search for happiness continues, and while I'm not sure where I'll find it, I'm gonna start patronizing convenience stores more often. Because, as it turns out, money can buy happiness, especially at 7-Eleven.