smokers mockery
03 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
Smokers, proceed with caution. Yes, you annoying people who love to make a stink out of yourselves and anyone who is unfortunate to be around you. Smokers somehow always manage to blow in my direction, and every time, the wind is always against my favour. Every time I sit outside a cafe to enjoy the weather, to drink a refreshing peppermint tea and to admire the off-street views in front of me…somehow, out of nowhere, a stream of smokers will light up right next to me. Always in the same spot. You may pace a couple of feet around this spot but you always stop to exhale in the part that’s nearest to me. It’s like I have this invisible sign saying ‘Hey, come and have a smoke right here! Go on! Choke your brains out!’. You all have the same small mouth Kabuki look on your face as you exhale this offensive substance into my personal breathing space. Oh how I loathe thee!
Just because you’re standing a metre away from the perimeter of the cafe’s outside non-smoking area, doesn’t make it OK. This really gets my teeth grinding. I’d cough loudly and then look at you with narrowing eyes. You may be intelligent enough to get the hint and move only ONE step away like that would make any real difference. The trail of smoke still reddens my eyeballs. I stare at you this time and you may look away and continue to puff it like a trumpet. You’re trying to ignore me since this is probably the fifth time a non-smoker has scowled at you. You fail to notice that the wind direction is coming towards me. You fail to acknowledge the non-smoking signs that surround you. You fail to see that had that been more than just your first cigarette, I’d probably have thrown a cup of iced-latte over your head.
You know what is worse than a smoker who lingers around non-smokers? Those who litter and smoke! An unsuspecting person will walk into the cafe that I’d be sitting outside of. He or she may purchase a coffee and then sip it as he or she walks out again. But oh no, what’s this? You’re now standing right outside the perimeter of the cafe’s outside seating area to spark up. You alternate from caffeine to tobacco, giving your hearts and lungs a good pounding to an early grave. And when you have finished mocking me with your smoke, you not only throw the lit cigarette stub onto the floor, you also leave your paper coffee cup on the floor and leave. You scum. Really. You’re more of an environmental hazard than rotting cow pats.
Why did you start smoking in the first place? What’s so damn good about yellowing teeth, smelly fingers, sexual incompetence, tobacco flavoured saliva kisses and bad skin? Sorry…what? You thought it was cool and sexy? Well, you look like a chimney who’d struggle in the bedroom. You thought it would help you relieve stress? Smoking doesn’t cure stress Einstein! Really, stop being so weak and give it up. For your own sake. For our sake.
I’d like to, for once to drink my tea without a floating whiff of tobacco. I’d like to go running in the park without you creating a cloud of smoke for which I have to hold my breath through. I’d like to have dinner in a beer garden without some idiot smoking on the other side of the wall; just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I can’t smell you. If I’m meeting you for the first time, I’d like you to ask me ’mind if I smoke?’ BEFORE you light up instead of flicking a lighter to a fag already in your mouth as you say it. And if I say I don’t mind, it’s because you’ve already lit up and I can’t exactly say no, put that sh&t out of your mouth right now. It also does not grant you the right to blow the smoke in my direction just because you happen to be facing me when you ask ‘so, what do you do?’ Doing a sideways mouth blow doesn’t work either. It just goes all over your face, thus making you smell even worse and then onto me to give me bloodshot eyes.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of great friends who smoke. It’s just when they smoke, I have a temporary lapse of any respect or fondness for them until well after the last exhalation. But really, subconsciously, I am actually saying to myself that I will from now on hang out with you less because this habit really offends me. It’s not you. It’s the cigarette. It’s nothing personal. Honestly. Yes OK, you do smell but I know you can’t help it. No chewing gum or any amount of perfume/deodorant ist going to mask how rank you smell either. I’m sorry, it really is just the cigarettes.
