Writer's Block: Smoked Out

[ans99]

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i'm perfectly willing to entertain the idea that this is partly psychosomatic, but cigarette smoke has got to be one of the most powerful nasal irritants ever to make my acquaintance. the minute someone takes a teeny tiny, innocent puff in my direction i know it, and it's more than i can stand. because of my zero tolerance policy on exposing myself to cigarette smoke, my general reaction seeing anyone light up in a public place is to affix them with a gaze of the deepest, darkest scorn. it's the same sort of scorn i reserve for those who bring tantrum-prone children to restaurants and movie theaters. the same hairy eye i'll give those who walk their dogs without a poo bag handy (extra scorn points if the dog is off a leash, which automatically lowers the level of safety for everyone, including the dog). it's the same gesture of disbelieving, abject horror i might use when being dangerously cut off by a motorist, or a pedestrian going balls-out loud-and-proud and diagonally jaywalking across a bike circle that, you know, i happen to be in at the time.

the same thing always crosses my mind. do you not care about others? do you not care about yourself?

smokers who go places just to stand outside for fifteen minutes out of every hour, in the rain, wind, snow, air raid, nuclear fallout? i can't lie-- i do pity them. i wish it didn't have to be this way, that they'd be tied to an addiction so fierce they'd be willing to stand this level of scorn from the establishment they're supporting, complete strangers, family and friends, the media. i wish that protecting the lungs of everyone smart enough to stay away from cigarettes did not seem like such a punishment to those who decided to willfully ignore the detriments to themselves and those around them. i wish that there were more measures in place to get these people the help they need and deserve. gosh, it just doesn't seem fair.

but it's always their choice, in the beginning. it is their responsibility. they are not crack babies. they are not permanently disabled. this is not some terminal addiction and these people are not a hopeless case. my father quit smoking when i was very young, and i've never seen evidence of a cigarette since. and here's a newsflash for you: cigarettes? they do not taste like CANDY. this is not something that someone falls into accidentally. you want to smoke, you ignore the risks, you ignore the fact that it sucks ass the first few times you do it, and then you get addicted and all of a sudden i'm supposed to feel sorry that other people don't want to inhale your noxious death cloud. i guess this kind of behavior is just something that is very hard for me to understand.

i'm not saying that if you're a smoker i'm going to be an ass to you. people is people and we all have ridiculously off-putting habits. but if you light up around me, i'm gone. no amount of political correctness is worth getting cancer over.

Comments

[catlips.livejournal.com]

i understand cigarettes less than i do drugs or just about anything. the taste and smell is awful. not that i judge too harshly, i have some shitty habits, but wtf.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

i was wondering what you'd think of it. it's amazing, isn't it? like coffee. i just don't get it. when i was 6 or 7 i put a cigarette in my mouth and then immediately spat it out. then ten years later i did the same thing trying coffee. these addictions that aren't even fun the first time you try them-- gee whiz, people sure do like to punish themselves ;P

[catlips.livejournal.com]

when i was like 4 my dad was joking around and reached out to me with a big bag of coffee beans and said "yumm!" so i grabbed a handful and ate them and threw up...ever since then i can't drink coffee unless it's jam pack full of sugar and creamer.

from what i've read cigarettes are more addictive than heroin? i would think that you'd have to smoke more than a few times to get used to the taste and be addicted though, and in the meantime, ugh.

[tr2a.livejournal.com]

even when i went to france and smoked a few times because EVERYONE i went camping with was doing it, it was too awful to sustain it. i went for about a pack before the familiar headache would make me throw it in the opposite direction. so even as a teenager it was peer-pressure proof. even unlit for the purposes of the costume party i got pretty lightheaded and throat-irritated.
but it was nothng without the cigarettes.
i've come to the conclusion that the reason other people not only persist, but enjoy it is just beyond me, so it's just one of the many things around that'll be there that's unhealthy along with the accumulated exhaust of hundreds of thousands of cars, california's fire season, and pesticide particles floating about. they find something in it i dont get, so let them have their cake. i cant care enough to pretend like they're taking a year off my life or something.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

yeah, there's that first time you've got to actually DO whatever you're addicted to. i mean, i get that cigarettes make people look glamorous, but that's why they made actual candy cigarettes for kids, isn't it?

hmmm, maybe we should start making kids taste this stuff early.

[catlips.livejournal.com]

hah, never thought about it that way. candy cigarettes always had the best gum for blowing bubbles.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

yes but you probably wouldn't go sucking on a tailpipe to pity-socialize, i hope.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

actually they probably made them to get kids interested in cigs in the first place, but it was a nice alternative for me growing up anyway. i could look cool and not get lung cancer, y'know? :)

but mine never had gum :/

[tr2a.livejournal.com]

it's a funny idea, but no.
i know very few smokers but it honestly doesnt bug me enough to walk away in the middle of a convo is all i'm saying.

[tr2a.livejournal.com]

yeah i thought they were always chocolate
when i got back from france i freaked my buddy out by coming back with chocolate cigarettes and an accent. i hid it enough to make him believe they were real

"WHATS HAPPENING TO YOU"
"iz zhere a problum? iz not liek i should cahre"

[freyja.livejournal.com]

hmmm, it does me. that was the point of the piece i guess, is that i'm oversensitive to cigarette smoke. i thought the world needed my UNIQUE SNOBBY VIEWPOINT in contrast with all the rest of them snobby viewpoints.

god i'll hang out (and have hung out) with pot and clove smokers before i can sit around a lit cigarette.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

mine were never chocolate either, WTF?!!

[tr2a.livejournal.com]

i guess it kinda confuses me why it's not more noxious than it is. i equally dont understand those that smoke and those that virulently hate it.

[tr2a.livejournal.com]

.... what the hell did they put in yours?

[freyja.livejournal.com]

it was just sugar candy.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

the fear of secondhand smoke and extreeem nasal irritation seem like decent reasons to virulently hate it.

[dream4fatgirl.livejournal.com]

Well thank you for pitying us fools.

[flyingcamel.livejournal.com]

The gum ones had crappy gum but were awesome because they were filled with gum dust, so you could blow on them and actually make sugary smoke come out.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

it's the most and least i can do.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

huh.

we once replicated that effect with those dried breadsticks and hot cocoa powder. but then one of us went into an uncontrollable coughing fit.

[fubarobfusco.livejournal.com]

People who smoke outside at least don't have the queasy, smoke-saturated reek of people who smoke heavily in enclosed spaces.

I'd rather have a conversation outdoors with a person who was actively smoking a cigarette, than indoors with a person who wasn't smoking at the moment but smelled of stale smoke in their clothes and hair. Fresh smoke blows away; soaked-in smoke clings.

[freyja.livejournal.com]

you don't think people who smoke on the sidewalk smoke at home?