With Smoke Pouring Out of His Ears...

Hi. I’m not BGoaB. I’m not Major Tom, either. I’m Pick, and I’ve decided to jump on this bandwagon as well. One of the things I’ve noticed when I look around at other people’s blogs is that a great number of people use them to vent about a wide variety of things. I don’t think BGoaB does enough of that. I’m going to make up for that right now.

I’m going to pick on one of my favorite pet peeves. What is that? Smoking. Or I guess I should say Inconsiderate Smoking (and smoking tends to bring out the inconsiderate b@st@rd or b!tch in quite a number of people).

What got me started thinking about this today was my experience driving back to work from lunch today. The girl in the car in front of me was sucking on some foul stink-stick, and of course the breeze was blowing the smoke right back at me. That isn’t really something I complain about too much, though. At least she wasn’t sitting in my car puffing away. No, her sin came a little later after the light changed. She (and I, behind her) got up to about 30 mph when she flicked the still-smoldering butt out of her sunroof, at which time it followed a near-perfect arc onto my windshield. Which is were it stayed. Lodged under the wiper blade. Melting the wiper blade in one spot. Grrr.

Could it be worse than that? Oh, yes, it could be worse than that. As I pulled up beside her to pass (and showing great restraint by not flipping her off, I thought – I mean, what good would it do, right?), I noted the presence of a car seat in the back. And then another. Both full. And a pre-teen girl in the front passenger seat. That, my friends, is horrible. I always figured that I’m OK with smokers who want to kill themselves slowly (or at least smell bad constantly), but when it comes to damaging the health of others, and especially those who aren’t given a choice in the matter? Well, I think that capitol punishment should be reconsidered. Well, maybe not anything quite that severe, but at a minimum there should be public floggings.

Smoke all you want. That is, as long as you are only hurting yourself (and not littering too, you cretins!).

Love,
Pick

Editor's note:
I want to say thanks to Major Tom and Pick for actually stepping up and taking on the challenge (that'll keep their mouths shut next time). As for Pick's post, I don't usually rant quite so much about arguably touchy subjects, but if he wants to rant, I'm happy to have the content.

On a personal note, let me say that I have helped fight five different fires in my life. Three of the five were caused by someone carelessly tossing a still-lit cigarette butt on the ground during drought conditions. One of those fires burned about two acres of grass lawn at my university. It took a long time for that area to come back to normal. One of the others burned up an entire median strip's worth of mulch and landscaping at a shopping center near here. In no case did the offending party likely even realize what they'd done. Just more cases of people not thinking about the possible consequences of their actions.

-BGoaB