The City of Boston recently passed a ban on all workplace smoking, which extends to every bar, restaurant, and nightclub within the city limits.
Cue Mormon Tabernacle Choir: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Now, I know that many of you do not share my jubilation and hence will not join me in my joyous caper through the Public Garden. I know that many of you smoke. I know that many of you are upset and angry at this Puritanical society that is so cruelly conspiring to deprive you of the only thing that brings pleasure and meaning to your empty little lives.
To which I reply: Put out your cigarette and shut the hell up.
And I’m allowed to say that, because I’m a former smoker. Furthermore, I’m one of those really self-righteous former smokers who despises the sight, smell, and very thought of cigarettes, and who thus feels that she has a special license to be as mean and judgmental of your habit as she pleases - so if you’re one of those people whose feelings are easily hurt, I’d advise you to skip today’s blog entirely and go listen to a Denis Leary CD or something.
I smoked from age fourteen through my sophomore year of college. I smoked a lot. I smoked before breakfast. I smoked in between classes, and I even smoked during meals right in the middle of the Terrace Dining Hall at Ithaca College (hey, what can I say - it was 1981 in Upstate New York, and they still considered tobacco a calming influence back then). Of course, the fact that I did most of my smoking in bars and restaurants (no such thing as non-smoking sections back then, folks) allowed me to hypocritically classify myself as a “social” smoker. I say “hypocritically,” because, when you stop to consider it, there’s really nothing more antisocial than running around in public spewing big black clouds of carcinogens into the faces of total strangers.
I don’t really remember why I started smoking - although it was probably because I was a real asshole growing up and I never failed to prove it at every opportunity - but I do remember why I quit. One day, when I was twenty, I fired up a Marlboro, took a drag, and suddenly thought, “Ew. This is disgusting.” And so I stopped smoking. Right then. Forever.
Quitting smoking was the easiest thing I ever did. No shakes. No cravings. No nicotine withdrawal whatsoever. The only ill effect I experienced was a heightened sense of smell, which manifested itself as an immediate ability to detect the tiniest whiff of cigarette smoke from up to a half-block away.
Ex-smoker + bionic nostrils = not someone you want to light up around.
It wasn’t until I quit smoking that I understood how truly obnoxious it is to smoke in public. Health concerns aside, smoking in public is just plain detestable from a pure etiquette perspective. I think Steve Martin summed up the situation quite succinctly when, in response to someone asking, “Do you mind if I smoke?” he replied, “Why, no. Do you mind if I fart?”
Because that’s what smoking in public really amounts to. It’s the rudeness equivalent of walking up to someone, turning around, dropping your pants, and ripping off one gigantic flood of flatulence right in his face just because it makes you feel good. I don’t know why smokers don’t get this, and I don’t understand why they get so huffy when someone calls them on their rudeness. If you don’t care about the discomfort you are causing the people around you, at least admit it, instead of wrapping yourself up in the American Flag and blathering at us about your rights. Yes, you have the legal right to smoke. Congratulations. You also have the legal right to be an asshole. Which, if you insist on smoking around people who don’t appreciate it, you are.
The only downside of the Boston smoking ban - other than the fact that it doesn’t extend to all public smoking, which it really should, because, when you think about it, if it’s dangerous for the people pouring you a beer in a bar it’s also dangerous for the people trying to wriggle their way by you in the office vestibule as you huddle there with your smoldering butt clenched defiantly between your teeth - is that it’s galvanized all the smokers. They’re so put out that they’ve gotten downright sassy.
Their petty acts of defiance are popping up everywhere. They start with little gestures of passive aggression - waiting until they’re inside a revolving door before “remembering” to exhale and trapping the next unsuspecting person in a glass-walled cube of smoke; pausing to light up upon exiting a building and “innocently” spewing a long column of fresh toxins at the flailing crowd behind them; blocking access to office buildings and blowing smoke “accidentally” at the people holding their breath as they try to get by.
They’re also trying their nicotine-stained hands at extortion - threatening to drive every nonsmoking establishment out of business by withholding their patronage until the ban is reversed. “Well, if I can’t smoke in a bar, then I just won’t go out!” they flounce, breathing new life into the phrase “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.” Frankly, if you’re such a loser you can’t face going out and having a few drinks without sucking on a cancer stick at the same time, then I certainly don’t want you hanging out in any bar I’m patronizing. Stay home. Stay home and puff away to your heart’s content. Just keep your windows closed and your arm inside your car so the fumes don’t drift in my direction.
Which reminds me - why do so many smokers insist on sitting outside on their front steps when they smoke at home, or rolling down their car windows and letting their butts dangle from their outstretched hands when they smoke while driving? Why do they bother with the breath mints, the mouthwash, and the cologne that, collectively, do nothing to mask that tangy ashtray stench? Could it be, perhaps, because cigarette smoke smells bad? Yeah? Then now you know how I feel.
And, please, spare me all the complaining about how non-smokers are just a bunch of evil do-gooders trying to save you from yourselves. That, to me, is just the crowning indication of how utterly self-centered the public smoker actually is.
Memo to the Defiant Public Smoker: Now hear this. It’s not about you. It’s about ME. I don’t care about you. I couldn’t care less if you drop dead from lung cancer, stroke, heart disease or any other smoking-related illness as long as you do it out of my presence in a hermetically sealed chamber where I don’t have to talk to you, look at you, or smell you. In fact, if you’re going to do it, do it soon - before you have a chance to procreate and thus pass along your Asshole Gene (you know, the one that compels you to engage in an activity that is filthy, annoying, and dangerous to everyone around you) to future generations.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that that might be the best solution after all. Just let ‘em all wheeze their way into oblivion. After all, the fewer smokers there are in the world, the better off the rest of us will be.
So, hey, on second thought…
Need a light?
