Smoking (and other smelly habits)

Many years ago, my brother developed a pithy answer to the question, “Mind if I smoke?”  He would respond, “Not at all.  Mind if I fart?”

This raises my main issue with smoking in public.  I respect the right of smokers to engage in a habit that is bad for their own health.  I respect the right of smokers to turn their teeth and fingernails yellow, make their voices gravely, and carry around with them the stale reek of an overflowing ashtray.  I respect the right of smokers to challenge the research leading to warnings about second-hand smoke.  And I respect the right of smokers to patronize establishments alongside non-smokers.  I just don’t respect their right to smoke there.

Why not?  Because sitting in a smoke-filled room feels no different from sitting in a closed garage with the car motor running.  Because when an unwashed person enters a room and then leaves, you can open a window and air it out.  Because when you fry your dinner in grease and set off the smoke detector, you can open a window and by the next day, the smell is gone.  But let smokers do their thing in a room day after day and you’re ripping up carpet, replacing curtains, and scrubbing tar off the walls to get the smell out.  In short, it’s offensive and disgusting.

While apartment-hunting in Jerusalem, I once saw a furnished place that stank of cigarette smoke.  The landlady asked what I thought, and I told her someone had been smoking there.  “But the smoker is gone,” she said.  I told her it still smelled like cigarettes.  “But the smoker is gone,” she persisted.  Not entirely, I thought.

It’s not easy having a canine sense of smell.  I smell things other people don’t, and not just when I’m pregnant and that sense has gone haywire.  If M. Night Shyamalan had written the Shimshonit version of “The Sixth Sense,” the memorable line would have been, “I smell dead people.”

I don’t want to sit in a restaurant with people who sit at their tables and sing opera or recite “Howl” at the top of their voices.  I also don’t want people slamming into me as they pass by my chair, or wearing unsightly clothing or makeup.  Why should the sense of smell be treated with so little compassion compared to the other senses?

I support smokers having designated areas and special restaurants, bars, and places of entertainment where their habit is permitted.  But I consider it a basic necessity to be able to breathe air free of noxious odors, so let smokers, wearers of Giorgio, and people with uncontrollable flatulence have their own place to eat, drink, and listen to music.

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