...
The first time it struck me this monster antismoking bit was an op of some sort was when my curiosity about ingrown toenails had been piqued. I whipped out my Merck Manual and learned everything there is to know about them, yuck... including that they are most prevalent in cigarette smokers. I know you think I'm just being hyperbolic when I insist those assholes are blaming even ingrown toenails on cigarettes, but I got it from the same place your doctor gets it, okay?
It's horse shit.
And what they say about indoor air quality being better in well ventilated smoking households. That's true too. I lived in a very old house in Stinson Beach. It did not smell great in there. Musty. Ancient pets. Not completely awful, but noticeable. Not even opening the windows helped it much, which surprised me, being on the beach and all. But smoking took away the pet stink.
I didn't trust this. I enlisted the aid of a lifelong nonsmoker. Someone I knew couldn't be trusted to tell the truth about cigarettes. Yes, he could not smell the antique pet stink when I'd been smoking in there with the windows open. Nor, obviously, with them closed, but the place smelled clean to him after I'd started smoking in there.
I'd been trying to train myself to always smoke outside, even at home, but decided that house actually smelled fresher when I smoked in there. The owner's kids thought so too. I used to do that here, too, but stopped bothering when I realized I'd hate it less if I didn't put myself through that.
Anyway, down in Stinson, after I took up smoking in the house, the antique pet smell would only come back after I'd been away a few days. Maybe the little particles of pet essences got carried out on the particles of tobacco smoke. Whatever. It was plainly apparent. Maybe even the sudden advent of rapidly regenerating dust in this house was concurrent with my deciding to hang up the smoking only outside bit. Particles of dread crop sprays and chemtrails and old insulation being caught by tobacco smoke and dropped on every surface in the house.
It wasn't wonderful to start, but it suddenly got radically worse. Sometimes it literally doesn't take a whole day before something I've wiped completely clean of dust looks like I never touched it. Demoralizing as that is, it might actually be healthier air in here now than before I just hung it up, stopped trying to be house trained.
I have volunteered in old people's homes many's the time, and the oldest and most lucid are always out on the porch smoking. Even one with Alzheimer's was holding out incredibly long by dint of smoking regularly and obsessively solving crossword puzzles.
Nothing is actually like "they" say it is.
always and any time....
