Smoker's Rights
OK
This morning, I'm chillin' at the off-leash area in one of my city's beautiful parks (as I have done for almost every morning for the last 3+ years) trying to relax into my day.
I'm running around with the dog, minding my own hypomanic business. Sometimes it's kinda hard to do when you're holding a smoke in one hand, a cup of joe in the other, while trying to throw a ball for the dog with the third hand you don't have.
This woman I have seen at the park a few times recently starts heading over to me from a ways off.
I'm thinking, "Uh oh."
She starts mumbling something to me; I'm thinking, "Oh man, this is gonna be a tough one. She's not even speaking clearly."
Suddenly, I realize that she is telling me that my smoke is bothering her from all the way over there.
Wait a second. I'm outside at a park. So, I tell her in my quickest, yet painfully nice way, "You know what? If my smoke is bothering you at an outdoor park, you need to just move away."
She looks shocked. She's thinking, "How dare you, you insolent devient smoker!"
I immediately call my dog over to me and begin moving away from this obvious, anti-smoking fascist.
She starts waving her arm at me, like she's shooing me away, and giving me her best Stink Eye.
Screw her. I'm off to the doggie water fountain way down at the other end of the park. I'm moving away from her, so she should be happy and leave me alone.
The doggie fountain is right near (like 3 feet away from) the road inside the park. There are speed bumps all along the road and signs indicating the speed limit is 5 MPH. This is for the safety of the kiddies playing soccer and vollyball on the weekends at the park.
Not less than 10 minutes after the incident with the local Smoking Police Enforcement Agent, she comes barreling down the road in her big-ass, gas-guzzling, soccer-mom mini-van.
If my dog had seen a squirrel across the road and decided to chase it right then, this lady would have killed my baby!
I immediately started moving my arm in a "pushing-down" motion. (It's how you stop a bus on the road in Tonga)
And, you know what? The idiot is smiling and waving back at me like, "Bye. Have a nice day. Nice chatting with you. See you tomorrow." She just keeps speeding by.
I wish she had stopped and rolled down the window to say something nasty to me. I would have told her this:
Listen lady, I learned to smoke in New York City. There is a very different attitude about smoking and smokers in New York. When I moved out to California 17 yrs ago, I quickly learned that, as an outsider, I needed to adapt to the new customs and attitudes about smoking out here.
I’ve been coming to this dog park 6 days a week, for over 3 years. I am always very conscious of my smoking around the other users of the park. There are several other smokers out here as well, who are conscious of their habit also. In all this time, you are the first person who has ever said that my smoking bothers them.
If you were a regular and frequent visitor to the off-leash area, you would probably know that there is a brochure available with pre-established guidelines for safe and respectful use of the area and the other users. The only mention of smoking in the brochure is to remind smokers to throw their butts in the garbage cans because they may be harmful to the dogs. I welcome all people to come and use the off-leash area, and encourage them to come often.
The park is an open-air area and I suggest that if you do not like cigarette smoke you keep a distance from those who are smoking. If some one approaches you with cigarette in hand, kindly ask them to move away. But if you walk up to someone and they are smoking, then you need to move away if it bothers you. If that is not acceptable, then you probably shouldn’t come to an open-air area where smokers may be, or are present.
I would also like to note that you need to slow down when you are driving on the road inside the park. This will give you the time to stop in case an off-leash dog does happen to run out across the road. I don’t think anyone would like to see a tragedy like a dog getting hit by a car first thing in the morning at Arroyo Verde Park.
How about that?
©2005 hpb©reations
posted by Preston @ 4:19 PM
5 Comments:
Bravo! LOLOL! And so painfully, tragically true!!!!
Henry, don't even get me STARTED about this issue, 'kay? When I heard, years ago, about what was going on in California with the smoking ban, I was grateful I lived in NY, where of course smoking was tolerated, and even encouraged. At street fairs, they would give out enough free half-pack samples that you could be set up for a month.
Meanwhile I imagined all the poor California smokers like you, living in a kind of Stepford Wives, perpetually sunny, have-a-nice-day kind of environment, where those who continued to smoke would soon wake in the middle of the night to the sounds of the jack-booted anti-smoking SS brigade, come to take them to a re-education camp with no cigs and no red meat, but with as many alfalfa sprouts and freshly squeezed carrot and celery juice as they could force down their gullets.
But then, when NYC's Mayor Bloomberg came into power, he instantly began his nefarious scheme to eliminate all smoking in restaurants and bars. Previously, a bar was a place where you came after work to relax, take a deep breath, grab your regular seat, order the usual, take out your smokes, and chill. Many people came in large groups and merrily spent the evening gesticulating, cackling, and talking in loud, boisterous voices while waving their cigs around for emphasis. Of course, others arrived early in the daylight hours because they desperately needed to get a little hair of the dog in a nice dark bar (wasn't it W. C. Fields who said, "It's much too nice of a day to spend outdoors?")
Yes, those were the days. Now you have to huddle freezing on the sidewalk with your smoke, hoping that someone doesn't steal your seat and the change you left on the bar. The old, grumpy bartender in BG's neighborhood took the 20-odd bucks he left there momentarily, thinking it was a tip. BG came back and said, "Hugh, you know we love you, but not that damn much."
Usually, street smoking is ok, except that the price of cigs in NY, due to insane taxation, has produced a breed of people who constantly accost innocent smokers on the sidewalk, asking if they can "buy" a cigarette. They usually make some vague gesture of rattling the change in their pockets, but we either say no or just give them one. Dirty cheapskates--if they want cigs, let them pay $7 and up and make the commitment to smoke the whole pack! I hate these namby pamby smoking wannabe's who just want one "once in awhile." Cowardly, wishy-washy bastards!
I don't have too many probs on the street with odious goody-goods like you did. Although, one woman did gesture to me and pointedly held her nose as she dashed by and vanished down the subway steps.
In closing, H, I think you should print up your smoker's rights manifesto and present it to this haughty bitch the next time she comes careening in her SUV to the dog run. And have your doggie bite her in the ass for good measure.
Good piece. I may not have been quite as diplomatic as you were, with the "fat a**" lady. I'd have the same mindset if I were a non-smoker. Again, very very good article.
E,
Like I said, I learned to smoke in NYC, and I've heard that things are getting tough all over for smokers in the Big Apple too. Bloomberg's been putting the screws to all of us there.
Yeah, it was kinda bad when I got here in 1988, but now it's getting kinda scary. They've banned smoking in some public parks and beaches out here already. I'm afraid that neurotic lady might go to the City Council and try to get an anti-smoking whammy put on the dog park. It's starting to bum me out; now, I try to avoid her, and it's interferring with my morning at the park with my dog.
While perfectly legal, I'm still deliberating the ethical ramifications of actually putting her picture in the post. I might add it later, so keep an eye out for it.
Ciao, Baby!
David,
She actually did not have a fat a**. She drives a big-ass mini-van. All the same, I think she's an M-Suck anyway.
Thanks for stopping by. Ya'll come back real soon, ya hear.
Henry, doesn't it strike your funny bone that people will take this righteous 'tude with smokers? It's like the classical a**hole that while you're standing in line waiting for the bus, sucking in the smog from all the traffic, stepped a little away from the line and light up, get this "your smoking is bothering me" complaint. As to the price of cigs, Elvira, I roll my own for about $180oo a year. And no, I wouldn't have been too nice to the fat-ass-van lady. How about I put out my smoke in your fat-ass-van-gas-tank and we can see some good fireworks?
YO, I know this comment is rather late, but I'm just now catching up with reading old posts in your blog. :-) In any case, I ran into all kinds of the same bullshit you're talking about when I lived in San Diego (in the parks, at the beaches, etc.). It's pretty damn scary. Oh, and of course you know about the thing going on in New Jersey right now: smoking while driving will result in a hefty fine. Yup, I'll only let 'em do that when they bother to enforce fines against assholes who talk on their cellphones while hurtling down freeways at 80+ mph.
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