RANT: Non-Smoker Fundies

[Zenobia]

OK, I have been a non-smoker all my life, but recently due to some serious stress in my life, I have started smoking cloves. Not chain-smoking really, but I do smoke about a pack per week.

This morning while I was on my way to the hospital to see my husband, I stopped to grab an iced latte at a place where I've been going for over a year.

The owner, a Vietnamese guy, has always been extremely friendly and used to ask me every time, how my husband was doing and how I was holding up, etc. Seemed like a really cool dude.

But today was different.

While he was running my debit card I lit up a clove, and he came back to the window and said "What are you doing??"

I said "Smoking a clove..."

He just totally went off on me. [insert Vietnamese accent here] "That so stinky! What you do that for? And you rook stinky too!"

I glanced at myself - truck is clean, I have on a pair of jeans and a tank top, no obvious stains, just took a bath, have deoderant on, etc. Gee! He must be talking about the cloves!

"Get outa here!" He says and flags me away.

Note, he didn't ask word one about my husband, or me, or anything - just turned into an instant judgemental hypocrite who sells one type of addictive substance (caffeine) but damns all who use another (was gonna say nicotine but cloves don't even have that!)

Anyway - sheeesh! Now I know what smokers put up with. I mean, yes I support laws that ban smoking in restaurants and bars because I don't want to beathe all that smoke - but if I lite up in my own car, who the fuck should care??

**Can you tell I miss the "RANTS" section of our forum?

Anyway - had to get that out. Any smokers or non-smokers have similar experiences to share? or thoughts?

[insert Jewish accent here] Discuss amongst yourselves...

[HanSolo]

Didn't you know? If someone smokes 30,000 miles away, or if someone just mentions the word "smoke" in your vicinity, you're chance of Lung, Brain, Foot and Hair cancer increases with 3,000%. Honest! And don't forget you'll die of an heart attack in 5 minutes... ;)

[Curtdude]

As a former smoker who indulges once in a while when w/ other smokers AND an icy martini is in hand, I know your pain all too well.

"Puritanical" is the only word for it when I am minding my own biz and not blowin' smoke in others' lives, but still I receive the "you know that is gonna kill you" invasive commentary. Somehow, I manage not to go up to total strangers while I'm jogging and inform them that their "lifestyle" is gonna kill them. I live and let live.

hehehehe, I used to smoke cloves, too. I can still remember the sweetness of the filters and the billow of smoke they produced.

[Zenobia]

HanSolo said:

Didn't you know? If someone smokes 30,000 miles away, or if someone just mentions the word "smoke" in your vicinity, you're chance of Lung, Brain, Foot and Hair cancer increases with 3,000%. Honest! And don't forget you'll die of an heart attack in 5 minutes... ;)

It's just amazing how extreme they get! Like I said, I've been a non-smoker for 40 + years just up until now and I never tried to give unwanted advice to people I didn't even know! Even those who were closest to me, like my husband (who was a chain smoker until 2 years ago) - I would only very rarely mention my concerns and even then I let him know I wasn't judging him, I was just concerned for his health.

[Zenobia]

Curtdude said:

As a former smoker who indulges once in a while when w/ other smokers AND an icy martini is in hand, I know your pain all too well.

"Puritanical" is the only word for it when I am minding my own biz and not blowin' smoke in others' lives, but still I receive the "you know that is gonna kill you" invasive commentary. Somehow, I manage not to go up to total strangers while I'm jogging and inform them that their "lifestyle" is gonna kill them. I live and let live.

hehehehe, I used to smoke cloves, too. I can still remember the sweetness of the filters and the billow of smoke they produced.

You know it really is invasive. And patronizing! Every smoker KNOWS about the risks. How can they help it when every 5 minutes there's some "truth" add on TV proclaiming it in glaring tones, and every bus in town has "smoking will kill you" bilboards. DUH! Yet these people feel that THEY have to inform you as though you never clued in before. Kind of like the "Jesus Saves" bumper stickers - like WOW I never heard of Jesus until I saw YOUR bumper sticker! GLORY!

I love cloves :) They are so sweet and, even though they aren't exactly "good" for me - at least they don't have the nicotine.

[Antlerman]

Oh crap. I'm going to seem the self-righteous one here, but it's really not the case. First the Vietnamese guy. Cloves/tobacco, I don't think he makes a distinction. He sees it as smoke invading someone else's air space. As an ex-smoker, 7 years now after 20 years of 1 pack a day, smoke from other's smoking puts a serious hurt on my nose. My sinuses instantly plug up and I can't breath. That's a fact. It's really not a case of "good for me, should be good for you". It's really more a matter of "your smoke has no place or right to be in my air space". It does in fact affect me quite negatively. Their right to smoke, does not supersede mine right to breath fresh air.

As a smoker in the past, I was sensitive to non-smokers, even though I couldn't fully appreciate the negative impact my smells were foisting upon them. So, did that guy over-react to a clove cigarette? Yes and no. Yes in that it's not tobacco. No, in that it is an uninvited burning smell in his air space. I also take offense to heavily scented perfumes when I am eating in a restaurant. There is no reason I should have to smell something strong like that when uninvited, especially during a good meal.

Is this self righteousness? I don't see it that way. Not when I was a smoker, and not now as an ex-smoker. It's always been about allowing everyone what they want. If smoking means they are forced to breath my smoke, then I don't have that right. I need to go elsewhere away from them.

[Zenobia]

So Antlerman... are you saying that he was justified to not show any compassion or interest in what is going on with my husband even though he KNOWS about the situation, and that instead he had the right to insult me and wave me away just because I was smoking a clove in my own vehicle at arms length?

As to the Cloves/Tobacco distinction - he would definately be familiar with cloves because they are manufactured in Indonesia.

[Jappy]

Color me clueless, I've never heard of smoking cloves before. I did a search for it and found this Q/A on Net wellness. (I'll post after my comment) I have to agree with Am on this. I'm very particular about what invades my breathing space and will complain if someone feels the need to force their habit on me. I'm also a former smoker.

You may have been in your car but perhaps there was an upwind or something that unknowingly blew the smoke/strong smell et al in his face (??) He's required to stand at the window for his job, and maybe he gets a lot of smokers who care very little that he's got to stand there and take orders/money/hand out items. Maybe he has sever Asthma or another ailment(??) Maybe he has personal health issues he never told you about....? Just trying to give perspective. Knee jerk reactions are almost never 'nice'. Perhaps he didn't realize how assholish he was coming across? He was offended and acted accordingly.

I'm sorry to hear of your husbands horrific illness, and hope he's on a fast track to recovery soon. Anyways.. on to the www.wellness.org post, full link at the end of the post.

Question:

My girlfriend has a clinical depression. As a consequence, she started smoking cloves. I found out that they don't contain nicotine and therefore she claims that they are not addictive. Yet she smokes them everytime that she is in that car (she says: it relaxes her). Sometimes she has urges to have it in the house. She says that she has the craving for one. My question is if these cigarettes are addictive, (she claims it's only a habit), (I found out that they are causing the lungs bleeding) how harmful are they and how to get her to understand that? Thanks!

Answer:

Clove cigarettes are approximately 60% tobacco and therefore, are considered just as hazardous as regular cigarettes, including addiction. In addition, the smoke from clove cigarettes has eugenol, which is highly toxic in a volatilized form such as smoke. In this form, it is 2500 times more toxic than when eaten as the spice, cloves, in food.

Eugenol is a local anesthetic so when inhaled, it decreases the gag reflex, which can cause the user to develop an aspiration pneumonitis. Because of the poor gag reflex, the oral secretions enter the lungs and set up an inflammatory reaction.

Hemoptysis (coughing up blood), pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), shortness of breath and wheezing are other symptoms that can occur with inhalation of clove smoke.

http://www.netwellness.org/question.cfm/1357.htm

[jdog]

Hi Zenobia, I use to smoke cigarettes. Now that I don't, I can tell you I can smell smoke from a long way off. I have a nose of a blood hound. So whether in your car or not, the coffee guy probably got a dose of the smell and he found it offensive.
But still I think he was way uncool going off at you like that. If he had to say something, he could have done it in a way more friendly way, or basically just bit his tongue and served you like normal. I don't know maybe he liked you and was disappointed in your choice of smoking, alot of men are put off by women smoking, they do not find it attractive. Sometimes people spout crap off and get mad because they actually care, and because you had these friendly chats with coffee guy in the past, maybe he felt comfortable enough to go off at you like he did.

Anyhow all that aside. I did not know that you were going through a difficult stressful time and that your husband is very sick. I am sorry to hear that, I hope for him to make a full recovery and you both can be free to enjoy life more. Peace

[Antlerman]

Zenobia said:

So Antlerman... are you saying that he was justified to not show any compassion or interest in what is going on with my husband even though he KNOWS about the situation, and that instead he had the right to insult me and wave me away just because I was smoking a clove in my own vehicle at arms length?
As to the Cloves/Tobacco distinction - he would definately be familiar with cloves because they are manufactured in Indonesia.

I hadn't caught that you were in your vehicle at the time. Nonetheless, reading what the other's thought about his reaction I can see to a degree. Justified is much too strong of a word. It was a strong reaction, and being firm but polite is preferable to having just shooed you away like that. Then it could be a culture thing also, where we take things like that far more personally and in their culture it's how people who like each other express their not liking something. I wouldn't be surprised in my mind if his thoughts were like, "I like her so much. I wish she didn't do that." And he thought he was helping communicate that to you, as he felt strongly about it. You "look stinky too" could be he finds the whole act of smoking to make someone look unattractive.

He reacted strongly to it, but I wouldn't say how he handled it was necessarily "justified". That he would react strongly could have some basis though. Sometimes when I get an unexpected punch into my nose from smoke, I will recoil and wince and go "ewww". It just happens. But then I may just ask, "Can you please put that out, or move somewhere else?" Or perhaps if it was someone I was good friends with I might wave my hand at them and say something like, "Oh man, you should quit that stinky habit". I would be saying that because I like them, but it would depend on my knowing how they might take that. I wouldn't be meaning it to be self-righteous. It would be because smoking is a bad thing.

Interesting info about clove cigarettes. I wasn't aware of the negatives like that, that it is part tobacco and the clove can harm you. Of course, with anything "bad for you", moderation (if possible with it) does allow for some indulgences. Drinking is bad for you too. But as I just heard my sister say just now, not 10 seconds ago in a fit a exasserbation, "Ohhh, I need a cigarette. I can't stand this here. I need a cigarette!". That's not an indulgence, that's using it as a drug. (I still hear her raving in the bathroom now as she's lighting up her drug stick, and injecting it's narcotics into her bloodstream through the oral cavity. Would that it at least would stop the stream of words flowing out of her mouth at the same time.)

[Kuroikaze]

I think his attitude was a bit much, but I agree with antler.

I've never been a smoker, and I've never heard of smoking cloves before, but I know that my younger sister (nearly 18) has some really strong reactions to almost any kind of smoking. A few years ago she was forced to be around a smoker for several hours, she was too polite to say anything and it messed up her sinuses so bad that she lost her voice for two days.

While it doesn't hit me quite as hard, smoke tends to mess up my sinuses as well.

I just don't want to have a stuffed up nose for a couple of days because the guy next to me had to have his smokes.

[Zenobia]

Thanks for all of your replies. I understand that smoke is offensive to people -I'm not a big fan of other people's smoke either. When my husband smoked (please note that the smoking did NOT cause his heart condition. Totally unrelated) it used to make me sick and he was very polite about it, always smoked outside, etc - but it would get all over him and sometimes I'd ask him to wash his hands or brush his teeth.

My main rant about the Vietnamese guy is not his objection to smoke: It's the way he treated me! His attitude!

The guy knows both Ben and me, we've been his customers for over a year. He knows all about Ben's condition and it blows my mind that all of a sudden none of that matters because I lit up a clove!

So while I get what all of you are saying - I also feel like I'm being invalidated here. And I still think that my feelings are totally valid.

The whole situation reminds me of judgemental christian fundies who don't have any compassion for you unless you are one of them - unless your lifestyle has their approval. If you are not one of them, all compassion flies out the window and you are no longer human. The guy's reaction was like that.

[woodsmoke]

Replying solely to the idea of other folks feeling the need to inform you how foolish/stupid you're being for doing something risky they don't approve of (nevermind they've never even thought of doing it)...

Suffice to say, I ride a motorcycle. I understand all too well.