Friday, March 24, 2006

Smoking

First and foremost, let me go on record saying that I think smoking is a nasty habit that needs to go the way of the Dodo bird. That being said, if a person truly chooses to light up and inhale a rolled-up wad of dried leaves, it's their choice. I wish them well in their lives and hope they find the strength to quit before said lives are permanently ruined. I never ask a person to put out a cigarette if they are near me. I simply try to move upwind of them.

Now, I have some questions for and about smokers and smoking.

1) Why, if a store doesn't allow smoking in the vestibule, do all the smokers stand right outside the doors? If you're sitting or standing in the vestibule, trying to avoid the smokers in the first place, you still get a snortful of cancer gas each time the doors open.

2) Do smokers not see the grand irony in puffing away on a cigarette and then either sucking down oxygen or asthma medicine? My great-aunt used to drag around her oxygen tank and puff up at the times she wasn't hooked up to it. She knew she was dying from emphysema, but didn't care. She was a great old bird in every other respect.

3) Why do so many smokers seem incapable of putting out their butts in the sand receptacles provided outside most stores? They so casually flick them to the ground. Do they do the same on the grass? People rarely even stub them out with their shoes. Do they not realize that one careless cigarette could cause a devastating wildfire?

4) Why is it that no matter where you stand outside, if a smoker shows up, the wind switches so that the smoke goes right into your face? If you ask the smoker to change places with you (which most seem amenable to if you ask politely, as I do) the wind immediately switches again, so the smoke goes the other way and smacks into you again! *sigh*

5) Why can a person buy cigarettes at 18 and alcohol at 21? They are both addictive, lethal drugs, so what's the difference between them other than the time it takes for them to kill?

Cheers.

3 comments:

ComicBookGoddess said...

Actually, I know at least one state agrees with you on #1 and has laws keeping people from smoking within 30 feet of the entrance or exit. In addition, New York City doesn't allow people to smoke in clubs and bars any more.
I remember the one day when I was working in Honesdale. They have a storefront and an enclosed corridor outside of all of the storefronts in their strip. People smoke in the enclosed corridor, but aren't allowed to inside the store. A customer from New York came in, saying in a totally shocked voice that "people are smoking out there". It took her 20 minutes to realize that she was in Pennsylvania, not New York, and that it wasn't illegal here.
Heh.

Shadowspun said...

London (or is it England,in general?) is joining Ireland in prohibiting smoking in bars/restaurants, too.

Look, I figure if you want to smoke and kill yourself, go for it, just don't pollute my lungs while you're at it.

D.B. Echo said...

My big pet peeve is cigarette butts. These things are the filters from cigarettes, made from a non-biodegradable matrix of fiberglass designed to prevent the worst toxins and particulates from getting into the smoker's lungs. And then, when the cigarette is burned all the way down, what do the smokers do? They fling these little packets of toxic waste wherever, contaminating the environment with all the crap THEY didn't want to poison themselves with!

I think cigarette filters should be banned. If you're going to smoke, you should have to deal fully with the consequences. Maybe even require shokers to rebreathe their seconhand smoke until their lungs have absorbed all of the toxins and particulates. It will cut down on the cigarette-related pollution AND the number of smokers!