I'm prejudiced

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

against smokers.

I don’t mean to be, some of my best friends are smokers.

I’ve never smoked cigarettes, never even tried them. I never wanted to. Both of my parents smoked and it stunk. I can remember family parties that were held in the the club basement.
I’d sit at the top of the stairs and see nothing but legs below a cloud of smoke. I know it really wasn’t that bad but that is how I remember it.

I hate the smell, I hate that I can taste it.
I was never so happy as when cigarettes were banned from office buildings. Finally I could breathe at work, no more watery eyes, no more cough.

I’m not so rabid in my prejudice. I think smoking should be allowed in bars and at outdoor events. Smoking and drinking go together like peanut butter and jelly, if I choose to go to a bar I know what I’m stepping in.

So
this Christmas I drove my mother out to the local shelter to drop off some needed items. Nothing extravagant, one man needed a coat. Another needed some pots and pans. A woman needed some bedspreads for her kids.
As we were leaving, a woman pushing her baby in a stroller walked out at the same time. A few feet from the door she stopped to light a cigarette.
I don’t know why but it pissed me off.
All I could think is, here you are in a shelter, you have a baby to care for, you don’t have enough money to support yourself or your child, but you still have money for cigarettes.
My mother said you don’t know what other battles she’s fought, maybe she has beaten other addictions and smoking is the last one. Or maybe that cigarette is the only thing she has to enjoy.

I feel petty, and hateful about it but I would think when you don’t have a place to live, or food to eat, or a way of caring for your baby without relying on the generosity of others, a cigarette is one of the last things you should be wasting money on.

I get mad at my friends who smoke, and then bitch because they can’t afford a new car or a better apartment.
At $7/day for a pack of cigarettes that is $210/month. For the couple who both smoke, that is $420/month. More than enough for a car payment or a better apartment. I have a hard time feeling bad for them because they make the choice to smoke instead of putting the money towards the other things they want.

I’m sure people think some of the things I spend money on are wasteful. I know I have no right to judge, but I do.
I hate cigarettes.

So call me a bitch, call me a hater, call me judgmental.
I admit it
I’m prejudiced against smokers and I hate feeling this way.

2

Don’t feel bad; I balance you out. I love smokers.

I don’t smoke, but I love how the smokers are absorbing all the hate and destructive energy from the busy-body do-gooders of the world. I support my smoking brethren every chance I get. Because I know, once the smokers are gone, they will come after me and my vice: the drinkers.

3

There’s a very simple solution called minding your own business, as long as they are not smoking in your face (or home) o whatever… it doesn’t affect you, it’s not your problem, just let it go.

4

How do you know she wasn’t dropping someone off like you were? Or maybe she was a volunteer. Or maybe she was visiting a family member.

The biggest lesson I learned in life was that there is literally no reason to care about things I cannot change. Work on this and you will be a happier person.

5

But it does. Unless you live in the wilderness, you are breathing smokers’ smoky exhalations and their litter is everywhere. We don’t have to deal with it as much as we did 20 years ago, but it absolutely does affect us. (Just not, perhaps, as much as some of the more strident voices claim. And the OP is not among the strident.)

If it didn’t affect us, I couldn’t imagine caring what people do in their spare time.

As far as judging the financial aspect, I do the same thing, but like your mother I try to remember that I don’t have a complete picture. Sure, I think less of people who smoke and then complain about money, but they probably think less of me when I complain about money because of {insert spending habit here}. As long as no one is a jerk about it, I don’t see the problem.

6

In a way, she was minding her own business. She was donating items she had to the needy. Her business was at that time directly related to helping people like that woman. So it did affect her.
Because of her dislike for that habit she might choose to donate those items in a way that would not benefit smokers.
But I hope that her mother tempered those thoughts with her comments.

Somebody that needs shelter, food, and clothing isn’t going to afford all of that by quitting cigarettes. They might have a little more cash to spend on basic needs but then again those cigarettes could be the crutch that holds their sanity together.

7

Therapy has made me more appreciative of feelings. They just are. You can’t help them any more than you can help the way ammonia stimulates your olfactory receptors.

I’m prejudiced too. I’m not going to list all the traits and habits that give me a bad vibe, but suffice it to say the list captures huge swaths of humanity.

Like you, I also try to be conscientious about where my feelings lead me, in both thought and action. While smoking is one of those “bad vibe” indicators for me, I try very hard not let it show. Because I have some control over that.

Don’t let anyone make you feel bad for not being 100% enlightened. As long as you don’t let the feelings show, then you have nothing to be ashamed about.

8

I hate the habit, not the people. Two of my kids are addicted to these murderous fuckers. I was too, 21 years ago. My father died while hooked to an oxygen tank, a victim of the emphysema that sapped all his strength. My brother had strokes, my sister’s husband had a heart attack: 3-5 pack a day smokers, the two of them. Fuck cigarettes and fuck the people who make them.

9

I completely respect those who smoke and those who don’t like smoking in their presence; however of people tell me they are anti-smoking I lose all respect for them, and discount their other opinions, as unfair as that may be.

10

Well,** Tim** hate is a bit strong for how I feel.
I hate the smoke but not the smoker. Like I said, some of my best friends smoke. I don’t like to ride on their cars but it’s their life and lungs.

I don’t know why it hit me when that woman lit up but it did.

Something for me to think about Monstro.

Sorry Chefguy I lost my grandfather to emphysema and a good friend to lung cancer.

11

I hate smoking, but try not to hate smokers. I do hate it when they throw their cigarette butts on the ground though, or when they break smoking laws such as smoking where they shouldn’t.

I am so SO glad that they banned smoking in bars here. I have bad lungs (probably due to my parents having smoked all the time) and I like to hang out in bars with my friends, without being surrounded by obnoxious clouds of smoke.

12

It also annoys me that some movie stars feel the need to constantly smoke while onscreen. McConaughey is my current object of anger about this. It’s not cool. It’s not stylish. And it sets a really poor example for younger viewers. Knock it off.

13

In this day and age, standing up and openly voicing your objection to smoking… It requires courage, intestinal fortitude and unimaginable bravery.
I salute you.

14

I totally agree with this. I hate the smell of smoke on a person and I don’t particularly like the way my house smells after I have smokers guests (no, I don’t send people outside, I think that is rude when the smell from one night of smoking leaves the next day). What I don’t like are these arrogant jerks who faux cough and wave their hands frantically when I am outside with a smoker. I wish I did still smoke so I could blow a big drag in their faces just on principal.

15

I think one of the issues here is that non-smokers have varying levels of reactions. Anyone who is pointedly being a jerk about it is a jerk; that goes without saying. However, it sounds like Foxy40 just isn’t all that bothered by smoke and smoking: mildly discomfited, maybe. I happen to find the smell and the sensation of smoke really unpleasant. Not so much that I’ll “faux cough and wave” (jerkish), but certainly that I won’t have it in my house, and I’ll cross the street to avoid walking behind a smoker. Not pointedly, because it’s about me, not about them. But I find the implication that I should just put up with it to prevent smokers from feeling uncomfortable—well, that puts too much of the burden on me, rather than the people taking the action.

It’s a subjective experience. Some smokers hate being in really smoky places; some non-smokers don’t care. When you start assuming that other people experience the same strength of feeling that you do, you’re probably wrong.

16

I have very weird thoughts on cigarettes. Since they’ve been proven so bad, instead of taxing the bejesus out of them, why doesn’t the government just ban their sale, including loose tobacco. Yeah, yeah, prohibition etc.

But my very weird theory is that somewhere in the government an actuary has calculated how many people need to die early from smoking, to balance the social security system. Think about it. You paid all your life, you die at 50, your widow (if) gets $225, and your kids get support until they’re 18, but that’s it. I bet the math works.

\end silly theory/

17

Where do I have to go to find cigarettes at $7 a packet?:eek::confused: They’re close to $20 a pack of 25’s here.:frowning:

18

Act three of this episode of This American Life discusses this.
Not such a silly idea.

19

For all I know they are $20/pack around here. The last I heard was around $7 but since I don’t smoke I don’t really know.
The last time I bought cigarettes was when my mother used to give me a quarter to run down to the drugstore and get them for her.

20

Not a weird theory at all. I’ve always thought that. Between the culling of the oldsters, and the taxes on cigs, smoking is one of the biggest windfalls the government has. The last thing they want is for smoking to taper off.

(on second thought, just because I’ve always thought it doesn’t mean it isn’t a weird theory)