Wanders in smoking.
Oh sorry does this bother you? It’s just getting me to heaven quicker and I can’t wait to get there if Bill Hicks is right in this small (http://www.cvis.psy.utexas.edu/sacredcow/darktimes/sounds/cap06.mp3)
See ya soon Bill.
Okay. Let me clarify. I respond in kind. If someone asks me not to smoke around them, I won’t. If someone is a DICK about it, that’s when I pull out the FFataRD. Someone who’s allergic and I don’t know this: If they inform me by being snotty, I’ll tell them to stand elsewhere. Like heavy traffic.If they say, “Excuse me, I’m allergic to smoke,” I’ll put out the cigarette AND apologise. If they say, “Excuse me, but I really don’t like smoke. Would you mind…?” My response is, “Not at all…here. I’ll go over that way to smoke.”
In a nutshell: I’m a very polite smoker. Around polite non-smokers. When they’re rude, so am I.
Satisfied?
I’ve noticed that the wussies in California have begun cracking down on women who wear perfume in public.
Now that the air is so fresh and clean and smoke-free, folks have noticed the annoying and persistent reek of Chanel No. 5 and are taking up arms against those who subject others to the scent against their will.
I’m cool with that. I dislike the smell of perfume.
<sarcasm>
Boy, ya know who really porks my jaws? Those people in restaurants who laugh and carry on. I mean, hell… if you wanna laugh and make merry in the privacy of your own home, so be it… But I dont want to be subjected to your loud, obnoxious parties and gatherings. Sheesh.
And those women who wear that vile perfume that gives me heartburn if Im near it. I mean, really… Would it be too much to ask that we all wear uniform and understated scents of cleanliness?
I dont like the scent of alcohol either, lets ban that too.
Come to think of it, cars are kind of unfair to those of us riding bicycles and doing our part to save the environment. Our lungs shouldnt have to suffer just because you dont feel like peddling 5 miles uphill to get to work everyday.
Oh. and those darned Omnivores. I mean, if you want to eat dead animal carcasses behind closed doors, so be it. But I find it vile and dont want to be witness to such atrocities.
I dont like screeching babies either. Lets sedate them all.
</sarcasm>
Sometimes you just have to put up with stuff for the good of the masses… just to keep things even. Otherwise we’d end up in a George Orwell nightmare.
Just keep in mind, everyone does something that annoys someone else.
<sarcasm>
I’ve been searching the medical journals as fast as I can…but no luck so far…maybe you could help me out?..I was trying to find any shred of evidence linking screeching babies, people laughing, perfume, second hand drinking etc to cancer or respiratory diseases?
I eagerly await your cites…thanks 
</sarcasm>
Loud people and screeching babies make me moody, stress me out and give me headaches. they also tend to raise my blood pressure. Im sure Im not alone in this… and high blood pressure can lead to strokes.
Strong perfume gives me heartburn (Weird, dont know why), which isnt gonna cause me to keel over, but its an annoyance.
Second hand drinking is only dangerous when drunken bums swagger to my car to ask for change or that drunk ass in front of me on the way home tried to swerve into my lane as I attempted to pass him. Oh. And bar fights. But I wouldnt worry about that as I have the sense not to go places that specialize in the peddling socially acceptable poison.
Granted, none of these cause respiratory diseases or cancer, but neither does walking through a group of people smoking outside a building. Im not sure how much second hand smoke is needed to riddle a pair of healthy, non-smoking lungs with cancer… but I highly doubt its from having to share the same restaurant with smokers,(in the restaurants where you still -can- smoke, anyhow. Although, if you’re -that- health-concious, theres plenty of restaurants that’re completely non-smoking, they still let screeching children in though, sigh) walking past a group of smokers when its unavoidable. (i.e. they’re smoking in front of your office building) You know as well as I do that theres no credable chance of ending up with cancer by occasional casual contact with smokers. Its just a minor annoyance that you dont feel you should have to put up with, because you dont smoke.
My kid doesnt squeal and carry on in public because I taught him better, but I wouldnt lobby to keep unruly children out of the public places just because I cant relate to their parents problems. Sometimes you just have to think to yourself, “God, Im glad my kids are hellspawn”/“God, Im glad Im not addicted to smoking.” and move on.
(I noticed you didnt mention the exhaust from automobiles and thats fine, because common sense tells me that the stuff that automobiles blow off is enough to send a pair of sensitive lungs to a less populated area.)
Reminds me Connie Willis’s Bellwether, a clever SF book with some real insights into fads and crowd mentality.
Okay, cigarette smoke is offensive to many and dangerous to some. Courteous smokers try to minimize the impact. Hey, why else were smoking jackets and smoking lounges invented, yo, so many years ago?
But the witchhunt mentality is pretty ugly. C’mon, people smoking outside and it’s too much? Nothing funnier, in a sick way, than someone bitching about smoking permitted in a parking lot. Forget reason, charity and sense: go for the scapegoat and ignore the cars gushing exhaust. Just one example, of course. (My personal favorite was a fervent anti-smoker who pitched a bitch over someone smoking outside the doors of a park lodge. Then he went in and settled happily in front of nice piney fire in the fireplace, blissfully righteous and ignorant of hypocrisy.)
Genuine health conditions are one thing. They’re awful, but they also–blessedly–aren’t that common. And there’s annoyance. “I don’t like the smell of that”: perfume, smoke, body odor, deodorant, a barbeque, etc.
I’m all for courtesy and trying to accomodate others but I’m beginning to worry about mental pollution. An annoyance is not a deliberate assault. Are sooo many Americans sooo delicate that they require elaborate accomodations?
Sorry, blathering, but wandering boundaries for victimhood bother me. Maybe I’ve seen too many hypersensitive souls pick and choose their irritants.
Veb