The Town of Boone is considering a smoking ban. Unlike most Lockers, I am supportive. I harbor a personal agenda based on a rational selfish interest to be able to:
- See. I cannot continue to wear contact lenses in cigarette smoke, and often removal does not alleviate the stinging and burning.
- Breathe. I stop breathing around certain brands of cigarettes. I don’t care to inhale secondary smoke from other cigarettes, and, once exposed, I need to wash clothes and hair before the aggravations stop.
- Talk. Secondary smoke makes me bray like a donkey when I try to talk. I did this while student teaching so I could be sociable in the teachers’ lounge.
- Function. Sometimes the stinging of eyes, throat, lungs, etc. makes me reel so badly, I cannot work.
- Be nice. Perhaps the most memorable thing I have ever done was cough a booger on the back of a guy who was smoking in front of me at Tiger Stadium. That was forty years before federal deficit dollars were blown teaching us to cough into our elbows.
If peanuts can be banned . . .
