Posted originally on December 2006 on my old blog.
Its fully dark out. Last time I was outside today was for lunch around 3pm, and it was brief. The whether hasn’t changed much, its still chilly outside, cold enough to make you feel it, but not as cold that you’ll be uncomfortable. I like it when its like this. i don’t have to rush home from the cold, I can just walk an enjoy —something I hate doing. There is no foggyness, the skyline of Toronto is clear and sharp, and the air crisp. I love the crispyness, it clears your head!! But better than that, it clears your nose and throat, you know? Its like you’ve just been given a shot of freshdom! Specially after being in the office for the better part of ten hours.
So I’m walking west on King St, watching from my sidewalk the the line of tightly-packed restaurants and all the people stopping to see what each has to offer. This is my favourite part of the walk home. There are so many colors and so many people exploring. While they are excited to be spending the night out with some friends or family, I am quite exhausted, but enjoying their excitement all the same.
But then, as I’m enjoying all that shit, I walk into a smoke cloud. The smell of cigarettes smoke is disgusting enough as it is, but this is repulsive. I really have no way of avoiding this cancer-giving-far-reaching thing, since I can’t see it, and I can’t really tell how far it spreads. The only thing I can do is hold my breath —which I do every single time I smell cigarette smoke.
I look to the front, to gage the situation. There are a few scenarios (all of these scenarios can get better/worst with wind direction):
Scenario 1: a Smoker is standing on the sidewalk smoking, to which I can simply just walk past and forget it ever happened.
Scenario 2: the Smoker is walking towards me, and quite rudely blew smoke near or around my personal space, to which I can just be pissed, hold my breath and move forward towards cleaner air.
Scenario 3: a Smoker is walking ahead of me, and is smoking as if there is nothing absolutely wrong with it, and the lingering smoke is being left behind for me to filter it back into CO2. This is the most hated scenario, because even though I have more options, there are more chances of inhaling the disgusting smell/cancer-giving-smoke. So I can either a) walk past him or b)take another route towards my final destination or c) altogether stop and wait for them to get really ahead of you (note: this solution is not as great, because there are chances of you catching up to them then you are stuck in scenario 3 again).
I’m faced with Scenario 3. The Smoker and his friend, are about 30 feet ahead of me, and even though the distance is usually quite far, the wind is not in my favour. I can’t walk past them, because they are too far, I can’t really take another route until I get to the corner. So instead of stopping, I decide to shift to the left a few steps. I start walking on the edge of the sidewalk, but I can still smell ‘it’. Throughout this, I’m still trying to hold my breath, because as much as I can, because I know that if I breathe the contaminated air, that’s all I will taste for the next half hour. So I shift to the right, almost walking into a pole, and nothing.
I try to breath a little, but to my disgust, I seem to have inhaled half a cigarette with that breath. I have very few options here, if I stop for no apparent reason, it will look rather stupid. try to scape this cloud as much as I can, but no success. We’re almost at the Holiday Inn by now, I’ve walked almost a block with this people ahead of me. I have no other choice, so I stop to the side of the building.
I take a breath…. and its clean. I walk out of the litle nudge I had hidden in, and start walking home again, and what do I find ahead of me? Scenario 1. The Smoker decided to stop and finish his cancer-giving-stick-of-disgusting.
I speed up to try to get ahead. The whole time I’m thinking, why is this allowed? They should be wearing stamps on their foreheads -a la Scarlett Letter!- that say “Smoker”, this way people can point and laugh and look at them like the are the low life of the modern world. Smokers should be treated the same way as druggies, let them go ahead and get high in some back alley where you have to be ashamed of what your doing, instead of forcing the entire fuck!ng world to it.
After all, I have to modify MY life to fit you (Smoker) in it. When really, it should be the other way around. YOU are the one causing all the problems, YOU are the one giving yourself a slow suicide.
So, please. In my presence, don’t be offended if I look at you in a mean way, after all, person that smokes is no person at all. At least while they are smoking.
