I'm a obnoxious anti-smoker

The BBQ Pit
1

I was a smoker from 1985 or so up to 1999. Now I have a kid, and the cravings are past, but there’s still some hard edges in the empty vessel of my smoking organ. Occasionally they great together like razor blades.

The smell of smoke will do it. It’s not that the smell is appealing. It’s like an old girlfriend that you used to love but now you hate and you can’t beleive you ever liked her but in some ways you still miss her.

The smell itself will piss me off.

I guess I’m one of those people that figures if I can’t smoke anymore, nobody else should either.

So I’ve become one of those radical antismokers.

We’re riding the tram from th parking lot to Hershey park Saturday, and there’s clearly no smoking signs in the tram.

Nevertheless, the jerk in front of me is smoking. My daughter is on my lap.

He puts his arm on the back of the armrest, and I look at the cigarette sitting in his hand. I’m smelling the smoke. I start to get really mad, like anger issues mad, and I build up a good head of socially justified self-righteous anger.

Without saying a word I pluck the cigarette from the jerk’s hand and toss it off the tram.

A startled middle-aged guy turns back in surprise and catches my look of hateful fury. I’m waiting for that first word of protest so that I can lambaste him.

He sees my little girl and looks at me genuinely embarassed and recalcitrant.

“I’m really sorry,” he says or something like that. “I wasn’t even aware I had a cigarette lit. Sorry.”

He’s all obseqious and shit, and I’m really not sure how to proceed. I give him a terse nod, as if to say “We’re going to let you off with a warning this time.”

He smiles again and I sit there scowling for the rest of the ride trying to figure out what to with the 85psi worth of self-righteousness I’ve compressed.

That was the end of the incident.

When did I become an angry ex-smoker. When did I turn into a smoke Nazi?

I remember how much people like me used to piss me off when I was a smoker. When I smoked I didn’t want to bother anybody. I was respectful. Anytime anyone asked me politely I’d put a cigarette out, and I used to wonder what was biting the ass of the jerks he seemed so angry about cigarettes.

Now I know.

So, just put that goddamn thing out while you’re reading this thread, ok?

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

2

Ex-smoker 4 months now.

I know what you mean about the smell of cigarette smoke. Before, I barely noticed it. Now, I recognize it easily and nearly gag in how horrible, how vile cigarette smoke can be.

Why, it’s so vile, I’m sorely tempted to stand there for a few minutes, inhaling deeply, just to experience over and over again how vile that smoke is. That horrible, horrible smoke. Just a few more breaths.
I haven’t turned into an obnoxious anti-smoker, yet; but I can’t go out and hang out with my smoking friends. Because it’s just too hard, and I know I’ll lapse. Hey, one cig won’t start everything back up again, right? Fuck.

3

I can’t quite figure out how you feel getting pissed off by smokers in a non-smoking section is obnoxious.

To me this is the flip side of yojimbo’s story about smoking in the smoking section:

Or would you have ripped the smoke out of his hand in the situation he describes?

4

Congratulations on quitting smoking. (I’m guessing you did it for your daughter?)

I worked with a pregnant waitress that once said, “Boy, I can’t wait for this baby to pop out so I can have a cigarette.”

I’ve always felt sorry for the children of smokers.

5

Scylla meet Yojimbo .
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2050754#post2050754
Best wishes!
:smiley:

6

My dad quit smoking for me. He said he smoked before I came around (I was the first-born in the family) because ‘everyone smoked’; considering the decade that was more or less true. The day I was born he was handing out cigars, and offered one to the OB. He declined, saying that they aren’t healthy for children. My dad stopped and thought about that, and quit smoking. I can’t imagine growing up in a household with smokers and what that’d do to your developing lungs.

Another annoying thing for non-smokers is that smell. I know it’s a temptation for smokers and ex-smokers; for non-smokers it’s a label and a pollutant. Go out to a club, come back with your clothes and jacket all fouled up with that smell. Work rolls around on Monday - whoops, forgot about my reeking jacket, ew…

7

I’m all down with the anti-smoking tip, Scylla, but next time, please consider speaking to the person first. Thanks.

8

I don’t see Scylla saying he’s going to go all anti-smoke in the smoking section, though. He specifically said “there’s clearly no smoking signs in the tram.” The guy he confronted was being the dick (and seemed to realize it), not Scylla. Just like the people confronting yojimbo were the dicks, not he.

9

Oh, you guys are lucky. One of the many, many things that lured me into smoking was the fact that the smell of cigarettes reminded me of my Grandmother and her house. I always had happy times there, therefore the smell of smoke = happy times. Sad fact - smoke doesn’t smell the same when you’re a smoker. Now I’ve got my 13 months as a non-smoker under my belt, I’m doing pretty good, but I find the smell of smoke attractive again - it’s something I haven’t experienced in over a decade, the smell of my Grandmother and her house. It would be better if I wasn’t so drawn to the smell.

[sub]Just so you know, my Grandmother is still alive. She quit smoking the year I took it up. The two events were unconnected - I was already smoking when she quit, but she didn’t know because I was sneaking around to hide it from my family.[/sub]

10

I assume Scylla would have the smarts to

  1. Not go into the place in the first place

or

  1. Sit in a fucking non-smoking area

If option no. 2 was chosen then he’d be quite right in asking me to stop smoking.

Just grabbing the smoke is a risky and dangerous way to go IMHO. You better be able to back that kind of shit up coz I know some guys who’d go through you for a shorthcut if that happened to them whether they were in the right or not.

Congrats on giving the bastards up BTW

11

Yojimbo:

I guess that’s the point. There’s this guy who forgot to put his cigarette out before he got on the tram, and then there’s me.

I have my daughter on my lap. I see the “No Smoking” sign, and I figure those two things give me carte blanche to be a self-righteous rude prick to a perfectly nice guy who made an innocent mistake and was nice about it despite my rudeness.

So I guess I’m on your side of the argument, here.

It’s like I felt that I was supposed to a prick to anybody that smoked near me and my daughter, and that it was practically mandatory if there happened to be a “No Smoking” sign nearby.

12

Gary:

Yeah, the guy was wrong, but I should have been polite in pointing it out.

In yojimbo’s situation I would have kept my mouth shut.

If I’d had a whole plate of food and the smoke was blowing right in our faces and Yojimbo was clearly finished eating and his table was clean and there were lots of free tables I think it would be ok to politely ask if he’d be willing to do a favor and slide a table down, but it would be his choice whether he wanted to or not.

I don’t know why, but the combination of the no smoking sign and the arm with the cigarette right there made me feel (wrongly,) that I had free license to be a total prick, more, that I was supposed to be.

I was all ready to have a shouting match or create a scene, but what threw me off was the fact that guy was decent about it.

13

You could have started a fire by doing that. :eek: Were Smokey the bear still alive he would not approve of your actions.

14

And… Cut!
You’ve just been to a test screening of my newly updated and modernized remake of Death Wish. How did you like it? Scylla now takes over Bronson’s role as Paul Kersey, dispatching street justice to such anti-PC scum as smokers, litterers, and cell phone abusers. But the action really heats up when he stumbles across a ring of neo-pagan, skin head, anti-recyclers. Dolling out Bronsonesque vigilante justice with a child on his lap didn’t play out well in all markets, but I think it really serves to illustrate his human side. Thoughts?

15

It’ll be nineteen years this August since I’ve had a cigarette.

I’ve been through the militant anti smoker stage and exited.

Now, it’s simply a choice. I go where there’s no smoking allowed, hold my breath through the places where it’s allowed. Don’t bowl, and avoid bars 'cause they’re smoke filled.

When faced w/a smoker in a non smoking section, depending on how I feel, I’ll either say something or get the manager.

It gets better, really it does.

(and yes, I quit for my kid - was pregnant at the time)

16

Just to recap then, you came across a situation where a guy doing something stupid pissed you off, to the extent that you acted more angrily than (in retrospect) you feel you should have.

You know , you’re going to have to try a lot harder if you really want to get a mention in the Guinness book of assholes. Sorry.

17

The word of the thread is: misocapnist.

:Sparc: puff…puff…“What? Yeah! What’s it to you???”:

:cool: