A while ago I was having a discussion about smoking laws with some co-workers of mine.
Aside from whether it should be allowed to smoke in closed places, public places, etc, I mentioned the fact that people smoking on the street can be annoying too.
My point was that when I cross someone on the street who's smoking a cigarrette I have to put up with the smoke for a little while. Somebody said "Yeah, but it's just while you're passing the person by..."
That doesn't matter. Be it 5 seconds or 2 minutes, be it just the moment when the person lits up the cigarrette or the whole experience, it still annoys me and makes me cough. People smoking on the street annoy me, because I'm forced to inhale their smoke.
You might say "oh, you're not forced too."
Am I not?
4, 7, 4, 5, 6, 3, 2, 5.
That's the number of times I was forced to inhale smoke during the last eight days.
Sometimes just 5 seconds, sometimes a bit more.
Sometimes just someone passing you by on the street, sometimes someone in the step beneath you in a slowly-moving-escalator when you have no way to escape. Quite frankly, this pisses me off more and more each day.
Just to make it perfectly clear, I actually hold my breath some times. If I go down the street and see somebody coming in my direction smoking, I actually inhale before I get to the person and either hold my breath or exhale while I'm passing the person.
Those numbers are actually the ones I wasn't able to avoid.
That's 36 cigarrettes of which I was forced to inhale some part of during the last eight days.
Today, when I went out for lunch, the number was 6.
It annoys me and it annoys even more to know that these people who smoke have absolutely no idea of how much it does so.
To quote an old man I once saw in a train talking about the subject: "You have no respect for me if you lit up that cigarrette."
Re:another annoying smoker aspect
derby on 2005-08-16T16:41:28
throw the butt in the ashtray
if only they would use an ahstray (and no, neither the curb nor my garden are friggin ashtrays).
You know what’s worse? I live close to a stadium, and there’s a convention taking place right now. The air is wafting this way, so my entire neighbourhood faintly smells of cigarette smoke right now.
The biggest irony of them all is it’s a Christian convention.
Re: convention
mary.poppins on 2005-08-16T20:52:18
Are you sure it is cigarette smoke? Perhaps they are making offerings.
Re:
Aristotle on 2005-08-16T21:00:25
I do appreciate humour, but yes, I am pretty certain that what I smell is the smoke of cigarettes.:-)
