Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog

I should know, because I used to smoke. I managed to stop cold turkey in the spring of 2004 after I had been so sick with the flu that I didn’t go to work—or do anything, let alone smoke—for three and a half days. I had been wanting to stop, and with that head start, my brain finally got behind the effort.

Even when I was a smoker, I was a hypocrite. If I was not puffing away myself at the moment, I was not in favor of smelling other people’s pollution. It seems a lot of smokers feel that way. I was, um, lucky enough that none of the city, county or, eventually, statewide indoor smoking bans had gone into effect while I still smoked, so I didn’t have to deal with enforced outside-going to engage in my nasty habit.

But people who still smoke do have to go outside. And that brings us to the pet peeve that is my topic today. Hey smokers: please move a respectable distance away from the door to engage in your filthy habit!

As has been the case several other times in the course of writing this blog, I learned something new. I thought I had remembered that part of the ordinance detailed that your smoking is not supposed to occur within a certain distance of building entrances. That is not the case, it is not written into the law that you must be ten or twenty or any number of feet away from the door before you light up.

That part is, if you think about, simply common courtesy.

I accept that it is your choice to continue smoking and contribute to your eventual demise. My beer drinking probably isn’t doing me any great favors. But what bugs the living daylights out of me is having to walk through your stink to get in or out of a building. I have no choice where the door is. You do have a choice about where to create your smokescreen. Here’s a simple request: please move a little farther away.

Now you’ll try to convince me that in cold or otherwise nasty weather, you’re more sheltered from the conditions closer to the building. If you’re that concerned about your health and welfare, quit smoking!

I’m not really going to preach here; you’ll do what you want to and, like religion and politics, my little rant doesn’t stand a chance of getting you to change. But it feels good to put the bug in your ear for a minute, anyway. If I can influence just one smoker …