shmoker

I loathe the smokers. I'm sure I've said this before, but here I am to say it again. I do not understand this habit on any level and I grow to hate it more and more with each step down any sidewalk of the city.

I realize that for some people, being in "the big city" provides a sexy sense of being chic and cosmopolitan, which explains quite a bit of the fashion parading around as well. At some point in history, smoking became inextricably tied into this "chic" and several million smokers were vomited upon the avenues, polluting the air from Battery Park to the GW Bridge and beyond. I suppose I could trace even further back in history, to when the smoker invaded the inside of the workplace, but I'm focused on the present. So there they stand, stylishly coiffed, clad in Armani and Michael Kors, carrying Louis bags - the real ones, because no woman with standards would buy a fake - carelessly polluting the breathing space of the millions who stream past them.

They do this several times a day, wherever they are; traipse out every couple of hours for a 15 - 20 minute break of feverish puffing and exhaling, neurotically surveying the crowd of irritated passersby as they exhale directly into the flow of traffic. I pass through this toxic cloud about once every 3 minutes, when I'm not holed up in my cube and about once every 3 minutes, I want to choke the tar-filled life out of every person I see, who has a hand gracefully extended out away from his or her body, carefully avoiding the virulent wisps curling peacefully toward heaven. Of course, the smoke can't be too near, lest it seep into those expensive suit fibers. Fuck all of us sorry assholes on the sidewalk, though. We get the smoke from the cigarette and the exhaust from the stale, parched lungs of the smoker. Serves me right for trying to walk peacefully down the street. Fuckers.

To add insult to injury, however, the smokers have devised a way to piss me off even when I'm inside. Here's how they do it. The more obvious assholes, stand directly in front of the doorways of companies, residences, restaurants and shopping locations. They stand there, usually adorned with a cell phone and a voice resonant of nails whining down a chalkboard and send their disgusting vapors to waft in one turn at a time through the revolving door.

The slightly more considerate, but still an intensely grating bunch, are the ones who flank the sides of each doorway, as if the six inch clearance they have to the left and right of the doorway is somehow a major concession on their part. This way, I only have to burst through a literal screen of smoke to get into my desired location. But hey, asthma, shmasthma; I need another obstacle.

And yes, I do think that the smoker should be thinking of me. Not just me, but the weird guy who wears tapered jeans and the lady with the plastic visor and the bangs and the dude who just hopped off the plane from South Dakota.

Fucking smoker: you are polluting my air against my wishes and to my dismay, legally, I can't flog you for it. Due to this, your contaminated ass should be fucking considerate of the healthy people around you and smoke in confined places like porta potties and sewer pipes and the inside of your own apartment. This way, you can keep all of that tasty, buzz-inducing poison to yourself. You don't have to share any of it. In fact, I prefer that you have it all.

Suck it all in and say a quick fuck you to those nasty alveoli. They were no good alveoli anyway, so you showed them.