I have a question.

[conuly]

If you catch the bus, and don't have money for the fare, and explain to the driver that you really need to be on the bus anyway because your asthma is so bad you cannot walk the 4 blocks to the boat (okay, five blocks - they're long at that point) in this heat....

Is it fair for me to interrupt and ask why you stink of cigarettes at this point in the conversation?

I mean, I didn't, but is that a valid question? Because my gut feeling is that the smoke is far more likely to be hazardous to his health (although I do understand that the heat and humidity is a bad combo for asthmatics in and of itself, of course).

That's the same bus ride in which the baby, for the first time ever, said "Mei-tai!" because she saw somebody wearing her kid in... I don't know, some structured carrier I didn't recognize and that didn't have a visible label.

Comments

Re: Addictions do that to the brain, I think...

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

I read a long long time ago that smoking actually paralyzes temporarily the csillia in your nose - thus deadening your sense of smell somewhat. I think it is a combination of this along with the adjustment-factor (where you tune out smells after being exposed to them for a while) that allows y mother not to smell the extent of the cigarette smoke in her room (or for that matter anywhere in the house). Instead, she is generally convinced that if I state that I will have to wash clothing that has been stored in her room before letting someone wear it, that I am making it up as a way to get in a disapproving jibe at her. She truly and sincerely believes for instance that the wool kids coats could not possibly have smelled of smoke since they were in the hall closet and still wrapped in plastic from the drycleaner. And she gets immediately upset and defensive if I suggest otherwise...my point being, it may not be thoughtlessness in the way most people are sometimes, but actually a serious psychological obliviousness. Establishing certain requests (e.g, please do not smoke around the kids *even outside*) with my mother has been quite the balancing act since I don't want her totally upset at me all the time! :-)