Until she left home, my wife didn’t realise that normal non-smoking households don’t have to mop their walls.
Omigod.
We had to do this with our first house. Former tenants were 2 pack a day each with kids in The house. The water cascaded down completely brown.
I remember that in pre-school in around 1990 we made clay ashtrays for father’s day. My father did not smoke but they told me to make one anyway…
When I was a kid I used to kick cigarette butts down the aisles at the local grocery store.
I’m a weirdo and I loved the smell, so naturally I became a smoker at the ripe old age of like, 10.
I know how much other people hate the smell so I’m always so paranoid about it.
I’m about to be a stay at home dad for a bit. I’m quitting to kill the expense. Wish me luck!
Good luck! I quit cold turkey after 20 years of smoking, and I started just like you at around 10 or so. The year after I quit was a bit weird, it was hard the first month or so, and got substantially better every day. What helped me not to start again, is that feeling that it might be weird now, but if I start again, that would mean all those terrible first days were for nothing, and I hate suffering with no purpose.
After a year I randomly realised that not only I don’t want to smoke anymore, the thought alone is a bit revolting, and that’s when I knew that I’m finally done with the whole shit. Gained a bit of weight though, nicotine is a wonderful appetite suppressor, but never regretted it.
Yep. The 80’s were absolutely horrible if you were bothered by smoke. There’s a reason why a lot of us 80’s kids “had asthma”, which magically disappeared when everything went non-smoking in the 90’s.
Smoking was just so pervasive here in Europe in the 80’s, it’s impossible for people to understand if you didn’t experience it first hand.
Like, even teachers smoked. Not in lessons, but if they were out in the playground supervising, or in the staff room, they’d light up.
My headteacher had a pipe. I think it was about the only thing that kept him going, right up until the cancer got him.
I remember a beloved fish-and-chips restaurant in the area where I grew up that had, in addition to fun cartoons of a clam introducing various dishes, smoke stains all along the edge of the ceiling. It was that bad… funny to think that it was soon after smoking was banned that the place closed down–maybe it never actually tasted good but nobody could tell??
i remember ashtrays on the arm of every airplane seat!
I still regularly marvel about how great it is not to have to quarantine my clothes and have a shower as soon as I come home from the pub or restaurant, and it has been 20 years since it was banned around here.
I went on a road trip a few years ago and we went to a bar… somewhere along the mid Atlantic. Maybe Virginia or one of the Carolinas, and people are smoking at the bar, and I felt like I had just landed on a different planet. Like… I had almost forgotten people still smoked at all, let alone a dozen people puffing away in a small barroom.
We got pretty drunk and had a good time though. But then when I took a shower in the morning, it was like all that smoke residue was oozing out of my pores and hair. Being hungover and having a steamy, cigarette-smelling shower did not start the day off well.
I’m old enough to remember when smoking was banned in bars/clubs in the UK. It went from a musky smell to body odour, and it took practically all venues by surprise.
Now, I’m so glad that indoors smoking was banned. Looking back, it was fucking gross, and while sadly lots of people now vape indoors it was a huge improvement to basically be able to actually breathe in those places.
If you want to experience this sensation today, travel to Russia or Japan. Yes, Japan. People don’t talk enough about how prevalent smoking still is over there. As a non-smoker, the number of restaurants or cafes I could go to without getting sick was diminished by about 90%.
Also:
- Any vacation spot with a lot of Russians, like Cuba. Nobody wants to tell a drunk Russian to put out their cigarette indoors, and smoking is allowed in open spaces (even covered spaces like open lobbies)
- Rome. Igneous rock is very porous, and everything ancient is made of it. Decades after smoking is banned there, the stonework will still be leaking the fumes out of its pores. The smoke was inescapable when I toured 15 years ago despite it being banned in indoor public places, and it will be inescapable 15 years from now.
Nobody wants to tell a drunk Russian to put out their cigarette indoors
As someone living in Russia, the danger is overestimated. The problem is mainly with them not understanding you. Possibly accidentally starting a fire when fulfilling your request.
Dude, you don’t get it. Nobody wants to hear from Russia anymore.
Wow.
Dude, Russia still has killed less people than USA in the last 20 years.
Among groups of people nobody wants to hear from anymore yours is higher.
Do you think it’s some kind of competition? Do you think that as long as you can find someone else who else did a bad thing yours is suddenly OK?
I’ve never set foot in the US. So shut up and go get ass-fucked every day in your hellhole soon to be glass joke of a country, Kümmel.
Oh, a German. I see why you are so anxious. Condolences.
