And by “the nasty” I mean smoking, so get your minds out of the gutter.
The Brickers are in the DR for Christmas, and a small disagreement arose amongst my in-laws last night. (Being Latin, that means there was shouting but no throwing things). One of my siblings-in-law smokes. Another had guests over for a rousing game of XBox 360-enabled Rock Band. Among those guests, one apparently either doesn’t like cigarette smoke, or (depending on which version of her story you believe) has a medical condition exacerbated by cigarette smoke.
Ms. Nosmokerson told the smoker, “You can’t smoke in here, I hate it.” Note, please, that it wasn’t “I’m terribly sorry, and I hate to ask, but would you mind awfully if …?” No, no – it was very direct and very commanding: “You can’t smoke in here, I hate it.”
Smokey rejoined with “I’m in my own house, and if you don’t like it, there’s the door.” Whereupon my other sibling-in-law, who was actually the host of the Rock Band event and had invited the guests, got into the debate by insisting that Smokey extinguish.
So the debate rages. Today we learn that supposed “I hate it” was actually code for “I have an allergy and a rare medical condition and will require hospitalization if exposed to smoke.” I am always skeptical of information which conveniently emerges to strengthen one side of a debate, but who knows?
My view is that few smokers would be ballsy enough to smoke in the face of “I’m terribly sorry, and I hate to ask, but since I have a terrible allergy to smoking, I’m afraid I can’t stay if there’s going to be smoking in here.” So in my view, it was the manner of the request, and the actual existence of the allergy/rare medical condition is irrelevant to how the issue should have been handled.
But I’m on the sidelines of the debate, because my Spanish isn’t good enough to handle the fast pace that debates in this context require.
I could have placed this in IMHO, I suppose, because I’m essentially asking for opinions about the situation. But in my experience, smoking vs. non-smoking tends to ignite (NPI) some passionate responses.