Smoking Stinks: Three Non-Health Related Reasons Why

All health reasons aside, these are some smoking pet peeves of mine. If you must smoke, please at least have respect for your environment, public and private property and your loved ones. I discuss these concerns below.

1. Butts Everywhere!

There is nothing I hate more than when smokers toss their butts on the ground. Folks, this is littering. It seems that many smokers, while they would never toss cups out the window, feel it is quite all right to toss a butt on the side of the road. Certain intersections in my area are just covered with butts. At every stop, I can feel my face getting as red as the light when I see piles of orange and white butts.

The world is not an ashtray! I wish car manufacturers would put ashtrays back in cars. I know that many do not in hopes to discourage smoking, but I feel all this does is encourage litterbugs. I live in an extremely beautiful area, so when I see litter on the roadside, I think 'scumbag!' How dare someone say they like living in the country because of the beauty, but then litter. If beer cans and McDonald's bags aren't enough, there are also butts everywhere. Come on! Have some respect for Mother Nature. No wonder she's pouring down extreme weather on us.

The school I work at has a smoking area with a sand bucket for proper butt disposal. Does it work? Not all the time. Butts still end up everywhere. It makes the student entrance look gross. Don't people have pride in their school? Or for that matter when generally speaking of all locations, pride in wherever they work? Someone has to clean all that up! Thank goodness our visitors use a different door.

Another pet peeve of mine is how disrespectful people are with their butts while on others property. At my old house, which was rented, we had a great summer party. The next day, I found our driveway to be littered with butts. It was so upset at my smoker friends for just throwing butts all over our landlord's driveway. I had to pick up every single butt.

At parties, it is so easy to dispose of butts-just throw them in an empty beer can or plastic cup. These are people I care about and they care about me, so why don't they care about my property?

Smokers: you are not exempt from littering laws.

2. Smoking Stinks! Smelly Hands!

My mom is a chain smoker (read my related story here). They say that our olfactory sense is associated with memories. Whenever I smell a smoker's stinky hands, I revert to memories of my mom wiping my face as a kid. I can't describe it in words, really, but it's that stale smell that seems to linger on a smoker's smoking hand. It disgusts me.

When my mom would fix my hair or do anything where her hands were close to my nose I just felt sick. In all seriousness, I was never touchy-feely with my mom as far as hugging as a child. Now that I dig deep and reflect, I think it was because her smell repulsed me. I would suggest the smokers wash their hands frequently, or just cover it up with a fragrant lotion.

As an aside, when I was on the dating scene, there were some nice gentleman who were interested in me who puffed away. I never considered even remotely dating them because I could not get intimate with someone who stinks like that. I can handle it if I have to in small doses, but I don't want someone in my personal space who has stale smoke smelling hands.

3. The Morning After

There is nothing I hate more than waking up the morning after a night out at the bar. This is nothing that an individual smoker can really prevent-this one has to do more with local lawmakers who have the power to ban smoking in public places. When I wake up after a night out, even though I changed out of my bar attire and into pajamas, I reek like stale smoke. The clothes in the hamper stink. I no longer wear my jacket into the bar, no matter how cold it is. Dry cleaning is expensive. When I take a shower in the morning, I can almost feel the smoke rising out of my hair. It reeks. I wash my hair twice. Unless laws change, the smoke stench will linger and non-smokers have to deal with it too.

In conclusion, there are many reasons why people should not smoke. However, I feel it is not going anywhere. There are some behavioral changes smokers can make to help make the world a better place.