A startling new invention
I read an article over the weekend.
To say that my gast was flabbered would be the understatement of the year.
I was shocked. I was stunned. I think I can safely say I was both shocked and stunned.
Yes, indeed – Biggest Halloween Risk for Kids is Surprising.
Now in fairness, I have to say I was truly surprised. Why did no one tell me this staggering information before?
You see, I was brought up in a house that was full of cigarette smoke. I lived in a world where the majority smoked. I always travelled on the upper deck of a bus, which happened to be the smokers’ deck. Everywhere I went I was surrounded by smoke. In fact I can say that clean air was an extreme rarity. And now I find that I had been breathing something so deadly? You can see how I was shocked?
I had no idea that I wasn’t supposed to enter a house where people smoked.
I didn’t know I was supposed to come down with all those nasty medical complaints.
Indeed, if I had known I would surely have died as it was something that obviously was expected of me.
I’m baffled though how no one ever mentioned these startling facts though. Obviously none of my friends had heard either, because not one of them died.
Now that I do know however, I am going to spread the word. I hope you read the article and drink in every word. Note especially the bit about how your children must never accept lifts in cars driven by smokers. Never ever. Tell them to walk instead. If they are mugged, raped and killed then so be it. At least you will be happy in the knowledge that it wasn’t a whiff of smoke that killed them.
I am puzzled though as to how I have managed to live this long.
Maybe it’s just because the lethal dangers of smoke have only just been invented?
Boy, was I lucky to have grown up when I did!
Grandpa, I am still trying to figure out how I have live over 60 years old myself, When I was growing up the only place to get away from smoke was surgery room (not worth it) rooms with oxygen, church, and school. Some one told me I was magic, well if I am all the baby boomer around they world are to, because they pretty much lived the same way, according to the government there are too many of them (old age pensions).
That weirdo that wrote that press release is a probably baby boomer or pretty close, sadly he too survive the smoking years.
Glad to see not all the smoking rants have been banished to the ‘smoking out’ site, grandad.
You may laugh, but a fella I knew met a sad end from this very thing. He was going out with a girl from the Southside who had a friend who went on holidays to Spain. None of them were smokers. Anyway, the girl in Spain met a fella called Carlos. Unknown to her, his Grandmother had had a cigarette on the last day of WWII, given to the poor woman by an American G.I.
You guessed it. Four years after she’d returned from holidays, the fella I knew was killed in a freak accident at work. Even the Doctor said it was that one deadly cigarette after the war that did it for him.
Sad to see not all the smoking rants have been banished to the ‘smoking out’ site, grandad.
I inhaled a minimum of two packs a days of “second-hand” smoke growing up; perhaps another half-pack a day from all the time I spent in the Principal’s office; and then another pack a day from my misspent evenings at the local pool hall.
When in the service and beyond I took up the habit first-hand (around a pack a day), augmented by heavy weed and hash inhalation (It should be noted that this occurred only outside of the confines of the United States proper; Europe and Asia were the milieu, and then for a period that barely exceeded 10 years. O.K….15 years. If you don’t count the ocassional blunt during lunch today).
Consequently, I fully expect to come down with some tobacco-related terminal illness sometime in my 80s or 90s.
For this I am indeed heartily sorry, world without end, amen.
Bk – Over 60? How did you miraculously escape all those deadly fumes seeping though the walls of your house? How did you manage to avoid shaking hands with a smoker? Why are we not all dead?
Moris – I aim to please. 😉
John – Definitely smoking related. I had an uncle who was killed in the war. His ship was torpedoed by a U-Boat, and the kapitan of the U-Boat was a cigarette smoker. Is there no getting away from the dangers of the evil habit?
TT – I aim to please. 😉
Doc – The cigarettes will get you in the end. It could be tomorrow, or when you are 110. They will get you.
brought up in a home by my motherwho smoked incessantly – a dirty insensitive addict – I and all my brothers and sister developed a hatred of tobacco. I was always a great man for the pub and was forever asking smelly smokers to keep theit foul habits to themselves.
The response was often hostile and it usually ended with the stinker needing hospital treatment.
On trains and busses I have had similar battles – a polite request – a rude response and a broken jaw or nose for the offender. I’m quite proud of this.
However I still developed smoker’s bronchitis from passive smoking and this put paid to my distance-running career, so maybe the stinkers won the last round.
I’m still a pub habitue and am delighted by the enlightened laws about smoking in the workplace introduced some years ago. The majority of adults don’t smoke and until recently we had no rights. We do now, and it gives great pleasure to see the stinkers huddled in the cold and wet outside the smokefree inn. Wonderful!
The reply from Curmudgeon tells us a lot about the personality of the writer. He believes his Mother was a “dirty insensitive addict” – charming. Rather than disliking smoking, he “hates” it. Hatred, as we know, can consume a mind and lead to distorted extremes of behaviour. As such, he does not view any of the 31% of the smoking Irish population as humans. Rather, he refers to them as “stinkers”. One wonders what floral aromas we should associate with Curmudgeon.
Tellingly then, he demonstrates that he can’t keep his “hatred” under control because, not only did he feel the need to confront smokers when he encountered them, his introductory remarks were along the lines of asking “smelly smokers” to keep theit “foul habits” to themselves. He reliably informs us that any smoker reacting unfavourably to such an approach, found themselves seeking hospital treatment soon after. So, our hero Curmudgeon admits to being a violent bully also, who revels in dishing out broken jaws and noses on public transport as well. From his attitude to his Mother, one must assume he sees all female smokers as “stinkers”, deserving of the same treatment from him.
But our violent bully doesn’t leave it at that. His attitude to his fellow man is clearly demonstrated by his “pleasure” in seeing smokers now huddled outdoors, obviously cold and uncomfortable. Perhaps, he particularly enjoys the sight of older and more infirm smokers as these suffer even more. The Nazis used to delight at the suffering of the Jews and I wonder does Curmudgeon have an opinion on that race of people.
Then he slips in his lie, possibly by way of explaining his irrational and violent actions, by stating falsely that his bronchitis was due to “passive” smoking. To quote the medical texts here, “Bronchitis is usually caused by infection with a virus. However, bronchitis may also be caused by bacteria, smoking or the inhalation of chemical pollutants or dust. The most common viruses that cause bronchitis are influenza A and B, The most common bacteria that causes bronchitis is Mycoplasma pneumoniae”. And while smoking may cause bronchitis, to suggest tiny concentrations of tobacco smoke thousands of times more dilute, could be the cause, is to indulge in serious ignorance.
So there you have it, you lying, violent, smug, ignorant sick bully. You claim to be “a great man for the pub”, but I suggest you might be more suited to an institution of a certain kind instead where years of treatment await you.
You are, patently, a sanctimonious shithead; but never mind. Thanks for the clinical diagnoses of what caused my bronchitis – it differs from my then doctor’s opinion, but you seem to know so much more than he.
Please tell me which pub/church/dole office you huddle outside to indulge your perversion – I’d like to come by and give you a wave.
Note: not a broken jaw as I don’t think you’d have the balls to ever challenge me.
Enjoy these wet and windy evenings – I just love ’em!
OY!!! Children! Stop that or you’ll both go to bed without any supper.
Grandad,
I always respect the wisdom of age and, of course, you are right!
Sticks n’ stones….