Showing posts with label smoking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smoking. Show all posts

Thursday, February 05, 2009

1 cigarette, 1 dollar...

On most any slow night I'll stand outside and smoke a cigarette. Let's not get into the debate about how bad it is for me. If it weighed that heavy on my mind I might go to a gym once in a while. Since I don't own a gym membership there's no need to even bring it up.

Usually there's at least one or two people that always stop and ask if they can bum a smoke or better yet, "borrow" a cigarette. The second question is funny to me and if I'm in a good mood I'll go along with "Uh.. how do you plan on borrowing a cigarette? I don't want it back after your done with it."

99% of the time my answer is, "No." There was a time when I received cigarettes very cheap. Almost to the point that I never paid for them. This helped out a lot considering the price of a pack these days. Even now I'm trying to talk a relative into sending me some in the mail just because they're cheaper there than here.

Now, there's two things that you can do that will piss me off. That I actually take personally. The first is steal from me. If I see someone try to walk away with any type of my property I automatically become furious. The second thing is to cost me money. This doesn't make me furious but it will make me hot under the collar. Especially when your cheap ass knows that a pack of cigarettes are expensive and you keep asking to bum them off of me.

I understand times are hard for bartenders. Even though this bartender still makes decent money for four hours of work. I didn't mind bumming him cigarettes when they were free but now I'm paying well over $5 a pack for these things. Even if there was a common decency involved where he bought me a pack it would be better.

Why doesn't he buy his own? Well, you see, he doesn't smoke. He only smokes when he's at work which makes no sense since you can't smoke inside the establishment any more.

So when he last asked for a smoke, I said plainly, "You know, I have to buy these now."

"Ok.." he stared blankly at me with his hand out, "So uh.. you want a quarter or something? That's what they come out to be right?"

"No, I think it's about a dollar now."

"Pfft.. yea right..." I hand him a cigarette and he goes outside. This happens three or four times a night. Luckily we only work a couple nights together but this is going to change.

The other night I had to get into the trunk of my car for something. As I was moving some things around I found a couple of old packs of cigarettes. They've probably been in my trunk since last summer. Since they've been in my trunk for so long they're obviously stale. I figure I'll just keep a pack of the stale smokes in my pocket and when he asks for one I'll give him one of those. Once those run out he's all done.

Funny how you can tell a complete stranger no but a coworker you're a little more cordial with.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Here We Go...

Sorry about the lack of posting as of late. With the new year starting things have been a little hectic. New procedures have been put together at work and its been interesting to see how they've worked out.

A few years ago the city of Chicago almost passed a smoking ban. I was weary about them passing the ban because if they passed the ban then I figured we'd be next. Well, Chicago didn't pass the smoking ban but it wasn't necessarily because they didn't want to. It was because the whole state of Illinois decided to go non-smoking.

The state of Illinois has passed, what many have called, the most stringent smoking ban to date. Which goes along with Illinois being known as a Police State.

The major difference between Illinois' smoking ban and that of other states is that it's focused primarily on the employees health rather than the patrons. Which is fun to explain to the non-smoking patrons that come to the establishment and think the state loves them. It's not about you, it's about the waitress that doesn't smoke and you don't tip.

One thing about Illinois ban is the fresh air clause. According to rumor there isn't an air recycling unit that can work fast enough to keep up with the state's mandate. When I look over the Act online there are a lot of Sections missing to it so there's no way to tell.

There are also a lot of businesses that are already being hurt by the ban. There are smoke shops that are slowly closing down. If the business is a tobacco shop then you can't sell beverage or food. In fact, you have to give up those licenses completely. I've even seen a few restaurant's that have shut down their kitchens just so the regulars in the neighborhood can keep on smoking. They think they have a way around it. Wait until it's time to pay bills, they'll wish they had kept it open.

A big state ban is strange. People feel like their Rights are being taken away from them. In part, they are. It's the right to choose. The right to your own choice. If things were done a little differently then it wouldn't be so bad.

I don't want to get into all the little schematical issues over it.

This just makes work a lot more difficult. Now instead of just making sure everyone plays nice we have to make sure the kids aren't smoking inside the building. Anyone caught gets tossed for doing something that we've all done for years. So there should be some interesting reactions in the near future.

I've been telling myself that now is a good time to quit. The rebellious side of me just keeps winning the argument. When you keep the law for so long you let the rebellious side win at times. Maybe in a few months...

Be safe.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Movies getting Snuffed Out...

I'm slowly realizing why I never really read or watched the news before. People and society are becoming complete and total idiots. The nation is becoming way too much of a police state.

I remember growing up to movies that had rude behaviour, slight nudity and funny situations. They were released into the theaters and had maybe a PG-13 rating. Now they want to give a R rating to any movie with a person smoking a cigarette in it. What has happened here?

Granted, I don't think smoking should be promoted to kids but this is taking it a little too far. There's already all of these bleeding heart nut jobs that want smoking banned from public places. Do we really need them in every form of our society? Smoking is a habit, just like drinking, gambling, playing bingo, jogging, walking, writing and many other things. Next will be banning weight machines and gyms because too many people have more muscles than other people. They might hurt you without thinking about it.

Maybe they should raise the stakes for movies based on comic book characters. I mean it is a fantasy land and some kid might jump off the top of a building because they think they can fly. It's just as possible as a kid starting smoking because they saw it on a film.

Then people wonder why we don't have great movies like Animal House or Porkies anymore. If these movies were released now they'd be rated NC-17 due to the nudity. Not to mention the poor quality of horror movies released in theaters.

I guess movies are going the way of music. If you want something good you have to go with the unknowns. Movies released straight to dvd are becoming the new indie trend. They don't even need to be rated.

If the world worried more about current events and less about "protecting" their children from "bad" things it might work out a little better.

Sooner or later your kid is gonna learn what smoking is. They're gonna learn what sex is. They're even gonna learn what alcohol is. And no matter what you do to try and protect them from the evils of the world... they'll probably learn all about it before they make it to 8th grade. And they'll learn it all from their friends and peers.

So which is worse? Smoking in movies or sex in movies?

The stats for underage pregnancies (age 15 to 19) have been declining on a yearly basis but it still costs the government 9 billion dollars a year to maintain. So should sex, holding hands, kissing and hugging be banned from movies too? Maybe.

Then after that we should definitely work on getting alcohol banned from movies. I mean the kids might see someone drink a beer and then drive off. We can't expect them to see this and know it's wrong. We should hide it from them. After all in 2005, 16,885 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes.

Maybe we should just lock our kids up in the basement and make them read the Bible from front to back until they can quote it word for word. Maybe that would help? Everyone knows that no one kills or murders people because of religion. There's never any problem due to religion.

Here's a great idea. The more a person can take in the faster they learn. Provide your kids with all the information both good and bad on every topic you think you should hide them from. Once they're 18 and no longer your financial burden or responsibility, let them decide what they want to do.

Stay out of my kitchen or I'll piss in your Cheerios.