Fuming

I wasn’t raised around cigarettes, so I’m puzzled by people who decide putting a smoldering poisonous stick in their mouths is a pretty neat idea. In fact, my childhood exposure to smokers was so limited, it consisted of exactly two people: my grandfather and my neighbor. 

Grandpa enjoyed the occasional pipe when I was little but traded in the habit for chewing gum. He quit cold turkey by sticking the pipe in a ziplock bag as a reminder that it was off-limits. (I’ve tried this method with things like chocolate, but apparently self-control isn’t hereditary.) My brothers and I would still give Grandpa an ashtray every Christmas, though, because he would use them as the foundation for abstract sculptures composed of toothpicks and slobbery globs of DoubleMint. (Grandpa was a man in desperate need of creative outlet.)

My neighbor, Nathan, was responsible for giving smoking the “bad boy” connotation it still carries in my mind. He skateboarded, ditched school, and said words like “piss,” all of which transformed him into a strange mixture of Bart Simpson and Boo Radley in my family lore. If one of the cars unexpectedly ran out of gas, Nathan had syphoned the tank. If a tool went missing, Nathan had paid a visit to our garage. When I tattooed the front steps with a sidewalk chalk threat reading “Step Here and DIE,” Nathan was my fall guy. (I eventually copped to the crime, but only after my dad called the police.) 

Adulthood and university did nothing to broaden my horizons toward tobacconist culture. I went to a school where smoking provided not only bad breath, but a speedy expulsion from college and California, the site of my first “real” job, has so many laws against smoking in public that few people take the risk. No, it was in Europe that I learned what it is to live around smokers.

My first clue that I was no longer in Clean Air Act Kansas anymore came in the Madrid airport. In between the baggage claim and customs areas, there is a glassed-in room permanently tinged grey and always stuffed with people irritably lighting up after smoke-free transatlantic flights. Just walking by is enough to make asthmatics like Ruyman whip out an inhaler and healthy pink-lunged people like me hold their breath. I marveled the first time I saw it. “Don’t they know smoking is bad for you?”

As it turns out, yes, people here do realize smoking doesn’t exactly increase longevity, but for the most part, they don’t see it as a problem. Since health care is free, someone else will pick up the tab for their cancer and emphysema meds. (Most smokers I’ve talked to in Spain assert that they, of course, won’t need anything so extreme since they only smoke one or two cigarettes a day, which hardly counts as a habit at all.) The actual cigarettes themselves, unhampered by the heavy taxes levied in the States, are cheaper than a candy bar. And as for clean white teeth (or, in many cases, any teeth at all), well, that’s something only Americans worry about.

Because smoking provides so little inconvenience to the actual smokers, it would stand to reason that smoking is no problem at all for those who don’t smoke. As someone who has unwillingly breathed in several packs of cigarettes second-hand in the last year, I’d like to clear up that particular misconception. 

Just because the tobacco is in your mouth doesn’t mean you keep the smoke to yourself. Due to your self-destructive habits, I too get smell terrible, enjoy a deadened sense of taste, and feel like retching for several minutes after leaving your generous and odiferous presence. This is particularly true if you’re indulging in a cigar, which I’ve learned is rather like breathing in the subtle, piquant aroma of a flaming dog turd. Oh, and since you’ve managed to sneak your toxins into the bloodstream of my unborn baby, well, double points for you.

With those thoughts in mind, it may surprise you that I’ve decided there’s nothing wrong with smoking in public places so long as it’s done correctly, following the instructions below:

First, cigarette users will cease to smoke their tobacco between their lips and, alternatively, will shove the cigarette up their nostril. (Right or left will do, depending on personal preference. I’m not picky). In order to facilitate maximum smoke inhalation, the lit end will be inserted first, thus ensuring that the smoker keeps all that tobacco-y goodness to him- or herself.

Because of the larger circumference and higher smoke output of the average cigar, stogie enthusiasts will forego the use of normal air outlets, such as the mouth or nose. Instead, they will learn to insert their cigar into and breathe from their most southernly orifice: the rectum. Again, the fiery end should go in first to enhance the experience.

Should smokers feel they are unable to make the above changes, I recommend purchasing a ziplock bag and several packs of gum. Who knows - you might even get an ashtray and some toothpicks for Christmas.