Loralee Maria Judge: To all the smokers of Vancouver
Is there anyone in Vancouver that doesn’t smoke? I’ve only lived here for three years, and it seems like no matter where I am in this city there’s not a corner I can’t walk around without a face full of cigarette fumes waiting to bitch-slap me in the face. I especially love it when someone walks by me and, nonchalantly unaware, blows their poisonous gas my way. It’s even more wonderful when someone is ahead of me and the delightful, vomit-inducing aroma of their cancer stick drifts behind them just waiting for me with open arms.
Oh, what a feeling! I mean, that’s what every woman in the world wants, right? To walk behind and beside people whose lips are wrapped around a phallic symbol while I play Frogger, trying to dodge the cloudy puffs of my potential destruction.
For me, it’s been like a dream come true. I know I sound judgmental and maybe even disdainful, but I actually am writing this from a place of grief and loss. I am thinking of my grandmother, the best friend I ever had in my life. She died of lung cancer at the age of 60, although she never smoked a day in her life. But my grandfather, her husband, had a two-pack-a-day habit. He outlived her for almost 10 years. He died with a nicotine-stained beard, sallow skin, and yellowed calluses between his fingers. He did not look peaceful in death.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, more than 800 people die each year in Canada due to secondhand smoke. There have been times when I’ve coughed, even gagged, and covered my mouth when walking amongst a crowd where about 75 percent of everyone is smoking. In return I’ve been cursed at and been told, “If I don’t like it, get the fuck out of the neighbourhood.” My teary eyes as I walk away are not smoke-induced, but for another reason which I will leave unsaid.
I know it is obvious I am a non-smoker. I know I am biased. Smokers may need to mind their manners when it comes to how their habit affects others, but I will say that smokers have rights too, and non-smokers have to make allowances of their own for those rights. We removed smokers from the restaurants, the bars, and the back of the buses into the outside elements of hot sun, icy rain, and windy winters. We stamped mocking photos of limp penises on their cancer-stick coffin containers. Most of all, we went on first dates with others and cringed when that eventual coupling of the lips came around; it was like French kissing Charlie Sheen’s ashtray.
I have to understand that smokers, in any form or numbers, are here to stay, and even though I most vehemently abhor cigarette smoking and am violently opposed to the habit (which has been compared to heroin addiction), I shouldn’t make it so publicly obvious that I am hostile to those that contribute death to the air that I breathe. That’s not fair—I should show some respect.
As was once said of Voltaire’s views, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” Such an enlightened statement brings me much comfort around this issue. To all the smokers of Vancouver: I support and defend your right to give me a nicotine facial every time you take a drag off of the love of your life—but I wish that the next time you inhale, please bend over and blow it out your ass.
Comments
72 Comments
andy
Mar 6, 2014 at 1:50pm
Learn how to walk faster, then.
#firstworldproblems
mre
Mar 6, 2014 at 1:59pm
go suck on the exhaust pipe of your car you hipocrite
soo
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:16pm
dripping with such condescension that it's difficult to get through the first paragraph and on to anything relevant or interesting that you actually have to say on the subject.
Shawn
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:19pm
Guess what lady, do you think smokers, who are treated as second class citizens by the likes of you want to constantly hear people bitching about shit like that. People like you are the same people that idle their car in traffic doing more damage than smokes do.
Pull your fucking head out of your ass and stop bitching.
Sincerely all the smokers that have to listen to fucking idiots like you all day everyday
Derek
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:20pm
Oh please... get a life... walking down the street worried about cigarette smoke when there are vehicles bumper to bumper beside you. Your probably the woman running on Main, or Broadway St. You lived in New York and Dawson Creek and are saying everyone in Vancouver smokes? Your an idiot, I've been to NYC and Dawson Creek (speaking of pollution) and you obviously have nothing better to write about. Maybe write about how people move to Vancouver from small shitty remote towns and think they are SO cool to live in Van and become the whiney pussy the you have represented yourself to be. I hope to run into you soon and be sure I'll have a huge puff of cigarette smoke to blow into your whiney bitchy face... (and I don't even smoke)
Ann
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:20pm
I agree people at bus stops or in public in general should be more considerate of those around them breathing the same air. But from what I read above your anger and disdain is right down there at the level of those who tell you to f off or cross the street. I think the bigger, picture is having respect for one another. Smokers for non-smokers and vice versa. Speaking from personal experience, quitting smoker is hard! it's like little devils running through your blood saying "feed me feed me" its all you can think about like an itch you not allowed to scratch. and if you fight through that urge to not rush out and buy more cancer and lung disease, your hit with those same urges all over again in 10-20 minutes. I want you to try not itching the next time you itch, or try holding in that sneeze next time the tickle comes. then times it by 100 every 10 minutes for the next 3 months, then come back and tell me if you were successful at not itching. The point I'm trying to make is that it is so easy for someone with no experience to sit on the side lines and criticize. We all know what year it is and the harms to our health but until you've experienced addiction for yourself, you'll continue to lack empathy but that doesn't mean you should throw out your dignity and respect with it.
Gord Dennis
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:20pm
Please , go cry a river somewhere else, you whiny cry-baby!!! Smoke em if you got em!!!
Mark
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:21pm
Boo freaking hoo, stop your crying you self involved twat.
Camille
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:23pm
"To walk behind and beside people whose lips are wrapped around a phallic symbol while I play Frogger, trying to dodge the cloudy puffs of my potential destruction".
I'd rather walk behind someone smoking than someone who's playing Frogger on the god damn sidewalk. People who smoke on the sidewalk have the opportunity to make sure they're not blowing smoke on someone, but the number of times I've stopped dead in my tracks while someone looks at their phone in the middle of a line of people... At least smokers die out, tech addicted idiots do not. Also, phallic? Really? If you're puffing on a cigarette and thinking about a penis, that's alllll you.
what was the point of this?
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:24pm
such transparent flame-bait. does the straight (like many other news sources) really just post stories that they know will be received with maximum hostility so that we can all trash the author in the comment section and forward the story to our friends so they can hate-read it also?
there's nothing new in this article. there's nothing particularly interesting. it's a rehash of known data spouted by a flat caricature of self-righteous, indignant superiority.