Monday, February 20, 2006

Just Sayin'

We temporarily suspend knitting and beading for the following PSA.

I'm a non-smoker. I admit it. I do hate cigarette smoke. (Oddly, I'm more tolerant of cigars and pipes, go figure.)

When it comes to personal habits, I lean toward libertarianism. So yeah, this is sort of a contradiction. But the way I see it...you have an absolute right to poison your body, to gunk up your lungs and to stink yourself to high heaven if you want to, but you have no right to do any of those things to me. So until the cigarette makers and smokers can figure out how to inhale the smoke, and keep it in, I'll be fighting for banning smoking just about everywhere the "public" congregates, but particularly indoors.

Why is ths coming up now? Because it's on my mind. We attended a family dinner at a nice restaurant over the weekend. We had a private room. Many of the people in attendance lit up regularly and with impunity, even when dinner was served. I even found an overflowing ashtray on the buffet table!! Bleah!! When the evening was over my hair, my wool jacket and slacks, everything, smelled like I spent the evening in the Elks Local 101 Lodge.....It was not nice.

Food was good, company was fun, but the incessant smoke made it difficult [for me] to enjoy the food and the company.

Is it me? It's OK you can tell me.

Just so you know the bead part of the title is meaningful...here's a photo of a little gem I did some time ago. (The design is not mine, but for the life of me I cannot remember the designers name.) I made two of these and gave them both away. It might be time to make one for ME! And Mom you better still have yours. You better not have given it to Matt.

2 comments:

allisonmariecat said...

It's NOT just you! I get on my soapbox all the time about how there's no right to give other people lung cancer. The city I live in recently implemented a bar/restaurant smoking ban, and it's *delightful* to go out and not come back all wheezy and smelly.

Cindy in (un) Happy Valley said...

Thanks for the reinforcement Allison!

What made this weekend even stranger, none of our extended family smoke. This was outside the extended family (cousins, spouses, 2nd cousins, and friends). I think that's why it was so completely shocking to me. Our immediate/extended family (parents, sibs, nephews, nieces etc.) would never smoke in the group.