NON-SMOKER'S REVENGE

I used to smoke. I stopped many years before it became the “smart” thing to do but it took a long time before the smell of smoke didn’t make me want to relapse! And even now every once in a while a whiff of smoke will, like a flashback, run a tiny video through my sensory nerves of that time some forty-five years ago when I took my last puff.

But except for that unbidden little blip of memory, smelling someone else’s smoke is just about the most irritating thing I can think of. The crazy thing is that as all of us non-smokers know, second-hand smoke will always and immediately drift over to the nose of a non-smoker. Even if the smoker moves, a breeze will suddenly appear that heads the smoke to the nearest nose again.

In the apartment where I live, the room I use for an office backs up to my neighbor Larry’s den. Larry is a smoker, and even with my window closed, I can smell it when he lights up. I do believe a person has a right to smoke in their own abode, and since Larry is a good neighbor, I just can’t bring myself to tell him his smoke is offending me. So I just grin and bear it. I am not much of a confronter.

But some people are. I had a good laugh the other day to read in the paper about a big brouhaha in Florida between a smoker and a non-smoker. Seems the smoker stepped outside her apartment to have a cigarette and of course the smoke immediately drifted into a nonsmoking neighbor’s apartment. There is some kind of back-story that wasn’t told in the newspaper about events leading up to the brouhaha, but the upshot of the matter is that the police arrested the non-smoking woman for waving a can of Glade Potpourri Air Freshener around the smoking woman's head while dispensing its contents. The police report said the offender then allegedly pointed the can at the back of the other woman's head and sprayed it for nearly a full minute. Police said she told the victim she would keep using the spray can as long as the victim kept smoking in front of the attacker's apartment.

"I will do it again, and take it to the Supreme Court because I have the right to breathe fresh air," the police report quoted the suspect as saying. The woman was arrested and charged with battery.

As I said earlier, I am not much of a confronter. As some of you will understand after my latest episode of confrontation, it makes my chest hurt! But I have to admit that I understand exactly how the non-smoking woman felt. There have been plenty of times when I wish I’d had a can of air freshener in my own hand. I hope the Florida judge will take pity on the attacker and not hit her too hard with consequences for her action. It’s true, I don’t approve of what she did, but I certainly do understand why she did it!