Secondhand Smoke, Firsthand Rage
I Just Want Fresh Air (Messed-Up But Managing #11)
I can’t stand cigarettes. I absolutely hate them. The smoke, the smell, the way it sneaks into your clothes as an airborne intruder and then just lurks. Then people think I smoke when I’ve never touched a cigarette in my life. Everything associated with cigarettes is awful. I don’t get how people willingly light up. My grandparents were both avid smokers. Me? I’m like the human equivalent of a police dog at an airport just with cigarettes. For real: the second a cigarette gets lit, I detect it. If there’s cigarette smoke in the vicinity, I know it before the smoker does. It’s like my superpower is knowing exactly where secondhand smoke is coming from at all times.
I’m also kinda like that guy around the campfire who, no matter where he moves, the smoke seems to charge right toward his face. The other day, my wife and I were on a nice walk, enjoying the fresh Hawai’i air, when this guy literally walks around us, gets in front of us, and lights up. OMG!!! I literally yelled out to him but he didn’t turn around. My wife grabbed my arm and told me to stop.
Ugh! I will admit though, upon reflection, that I don’t know what was worse, the fact that his smoke was wafting back at us or the fact that a smoker was moving faster than us. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so out of shape and personally attacked at the same time. I wanted to be mad, but I was also like, dang, is this guy training for the Olympics? What’s going on?!
And it’s not just on walks that this crap happens. Few things are worse than pulling up to a stoplight and realizing the car in front of me has a rolling chimney attached to it. The smoke starts creeping back and invisibly hijacking the car. I try to roll up my windows real fast, but it’s too late. Now I’m just trapped in the cloud of smoke like some hamster in a vape shop. Tell me that’s not infuriating!
Then there’s the guy in the car next to me, just puffing away like he’s personally offended by the fact that I have total lung function while he’s opted against it. And I just love when I glance over at them and they give me that side-eye like what’s your problem, buddy? Oh, nothing! Just thrilled to be getting an unsolicited nicotine facial while sitting in traffic, buddy! You?
The littering drives me a little crazy, too. The butts, the ashes, the sheer commitment to flicking trash into the world like nature is their personal ashtray. I’ve seen smokers in a literal parking lot, ten feet from a trash can, just toss their butt on the ground like that’s its final resting place. In a church I used to serve at a congregant named Richard was very fond of saying, “I’ve never met a smoker who wasn’t a litterer.” And he was right. If it’s not the butts it’s the ashes and if it’s not the ashes it’s the smoke. It’s all gross.
For most of my childhood and teen years, my grandma literally smoked with an oxygen tank next to her. An oxygen tank. A live, turned on, air-pumping oxygen tank! She smoked with breathing tubes stuck in her nose. It was like watching someone play a real-life game roulette but with everyone in the trailer. I guess at that point, you figure if you’re already rolling the dice with lung cancer, why not throw in a potential propane fireball that would send the trailer and everyone in it into the air for fun, right?!
And don’t even get me started on traveling. We don’t smoke indoors, such as in restaurants or stores, in the U.S. anymore, which is great. I remember when I was a kid that was totally a thing. But if you go to E
urope? Forget it. I went to Italy a few years ago and walked into a gelato shop, just trying to enjoy some refreshing Italian ice cream, and walked out smelling like the Marlboro Man’s emotional support animal. It was like with every scoop of gelato, instead of getting fun flavors like “birthday cake” or “strawberry,” you could get scoops based on cigarette brands: Camels, Newports, (insert gross cigarette type here) ___.
I just wish smokers would be courteous. That’s all I’m asking. And at the risk of committing the “appeal to modernity fallacy,” I will say it’s 2025 and we all know better. Come on! Smoking is bad for you. But if you’ve just gotta smoke? Go do your thing over there away from the fresh air. Go away from the people like me who are just trying to exist without inhaling the same fumes that killed Tom and Jerry’s owner in the 1940s. I don’t want to have to dodge your nasty smells and cigarette butts like I have to dodge bananas in Mario Kart. Stop already! Let me put it this way: Smoke like you have a little shame.