the imbroglio

One of the many differences between this place and D.C. is that smoking seems much more common here. Bars especially are smoky places, but out on the street you’ll always see someone smoking—either as they walk or stand, or as they drive their cars.

Why is this? I suspect it’s part of the overall attitude that people around here aren’t going to let anyone else tell them what to do, and especially not those city-slicker east coasters who are always going on and on about how bad smoking is for you. What do they know? And even if smoking is as bad as those evil city folks say, if I want to kill myself, that’s my business…

It’s also probably a class thing. I’m sure there was lots of smoking in D.C., too; I just didn’t see it b/c I circulated in a largely upper-middle-class world. Now I live in a more blue-collar, working class place than D.C.; therefore I am surrounded by more smoking.

At Borders yesterday I saw a trio of stylish and healthy-looking 20-somethings take their coffee outside to the patio and light up cigarettes. It was a beautiful day, the perfect day to sit outside and soak up the early autumn sunshine. But I found myself thinking: It must suck to be a smoker when the weather turns cold.

That thought reminded me of being in Finland where smoking was also more common than I was used to at the time. I remember walking to school on bitter cold winter mornings—mornings when it was still pitch dark outside because the sun wasn’t going to get more than a foot above the horizon all day—and seeing people standing out on their little apartment balconies, bundled in housecoats and snowboots, sucking on their cigarettes.

There’s a reason smoking is called an “addiction.