Smoking War

The weather has turned cold and nasty and my mother is wanting me to ease up on my no smoking policy. Her argument is that she can close her bedroom door, open her window and use her air purifier. My argument is that the fumes can still be smelt, it makes me sick and I do not enjoy coming home and being greeted by the disgusting smell of "eau de ashtray".

It's so appropriate that while browsing through some files on my computer that I happened across this piece I wrote on February 20, 2000 on this very issue. After reading it through, I think I have the answer to my dilemma.


Pre-Meditated Murder
Feb 20, 2000

One week without Mother at home has me convinced that anyone that smokes in a house with other non smoking people and animals is a murderer. It's 4:30 am the first night of her return and her early morning trip to the washroom along with her first stogie of the day has left me choking and wide awake at the other end of the house in the basement.

I do not need to listen to the breakthrough medical news on the radio or television, even though there is an abundance of the information around, about the startling statistics of how second hand smoke can be more deadly than if you smoked the cigarette yourself, my fine tuned body tells me that, in not so subtle ways.

I grew up in a house with two smoking parents. The norm for most anyone that was born in the 60's. My sister and I would spend hours playing house and my biggest thrill was when we actually had some candy cigarettes around so that I could be just like Mom. Oddly enough, my sister never used the candy cigarettes the way they were intended, she ate her's. Such a waste when you could probably get ten minutes of pure smoking enjoyment out of them before they became one long white sticky mess stuck from your lips all over your face and fingers.

That was one indication that my sister would never smoke. That and the fact that she always suffered from car sickness on any trip in the car whether it was around the corner to the store or on a longer trip to Toronto to visit relatives. I used to look at her with such an annoying, pathetic, aggravated look as we pulled over and Debbie would fall out of the car in a cloud of smoke, from my parents, who were puffing away in the front seat, to vomit on the side of the highway. That would mean that we would be another ½ hour or more to get there.

Debbie used to want to open the window but my parents would yell at her to wait until they had finished their cigarette. The only open windows in the car were the two small nose drafts that were located at the front corner of the front windows. You could crank them out about 25% and although they did not provide any fresh air what they did do was suck the smoke outside. Well that was what they were supposed to do, but I have noticed that even if you are in a car with the windows all the way down, and someone is smoking that you still are breathing in some of the crap.

That was my first and earliest sign that smoking kills. Only problem is that I was too young to even appreciate the significance of my poor sister having to be sick to her stomach on each and every trip in the car with my parents. I had a stronger constitution. I did not get ill in the car. The smell of gasoline, markers and any other noxious poison was a treat to my young nostrils.

We grew older and Debbie moved out of the house. She remained a non smoker but I started to smoke at the age of 12. So proud to be able to show all my friends how to inhale. Of course I had been studying the art intently from an early age and just by observation I was able to master the art after only a few tries. Those first drags were a killer in itself.

The lightheadedness was an extreme danger while sitting up in the apple tree; almost fell to the ground. I could have killed myself. Once you get over the puking stage it'll be ok, I would tell my friends as they kneeled over in the school yard heaving from the cigarette that they had just inhaled from start to finish. It only took me about three or four cigarettes to become accustomed to the chemicals and not get sick to my stomach. A small price to pay for the pure enjoyment that comes wrapped in the lovely white paper.

By the time I was in high school all of my closest friends had joined the ranks of the smokers. We had our own special clique. We huddled together in the freezing winter climes to enjoy a couple of drags between classes while the non smokers casually hung around indoors chatting to one another in the comfort of the school. We were cool and we knew it. Cocky enough to stand out on the corner of the main street and smoke without worry that our parents would find out. I was the cockiest of them all, because I didn't have to worry about my mom finding out. She already knew.

At age 14, I was smoking freely in the house. I had an ashtray by my bed for convenience, but mom taught me a very important life saving tip; never smoke in bed lying down. If you want a cigarette, make sure you sit up first. Many a cigarette was enjoyed laying down, blowing smoke rings up towards the ceiling while I talked for hours on end to my friends on the telephone.

While I was downstairs smoking my brains out, my sister was up in the attic trying to keep warm in the un-insulated rooms on the top floor of our Victorian flat. When we moved in she was emphatic that she wanted the top floor to herself. It was old and run down, but the heat and cold were not a deterrent to her. She wanted her privacy. That's what she told us anyway, but now that I think back maybe she just wanted to breathe.

It wasn't unusual either, when she moved out of the house at an early age. We had heard from the time we were babes how my mom was out on her own at the age of sixteen so I figured Debbie was just doing the natural thing when she walked out at the same age. She was always the cranky one out of both of us, constantly arguing and bickering with my mother where I could just let water slide off my back as I casually lounged on the love seat watching tv, smoking and drinking pop. My sedate nature could possibly have been contributed by the cigarettes that I was now completely addicted to.

Then I fell in love. It was the real thing and I knew right away that this was the man I was going to marry. The only problem was that he was a non smoker. He never complained during the courting stage but when he knew I was hooked he gave me the ultimatum. Him or the cigarettes. My choice was Bill. It horrified my mother that I would choose a human over the joy of narcotics.

My sister fell in love a couple of years later and married a smoker. She suffered her annual asthma attacks quietly, swearing that cigarette smoke didn't bother her at all. She still had not figured out that her car sickness was not really car sickness. I enjoyed living in a smoke free environment. Unable to tolerate a visit at her house with my brother in law unless I, myself, snuck a few drags just to get over the nausea that would undoubtedly overcome me the moment I was in contact with cigarette smoke.

Smoking was still allowed in public places and employers usually supplied ashtrays to employees that smoked. I would look upon my non-smoking coworkers with disdain as they coughed, choked and complained now and then about the cigarette smoke in the office. Secretly I felt sorry for them. Outsiders that they were. Not part of the in-crowd.

As long as I was smoking the killers myself, I was never bothered by cigarette smoke, but the moment I would quit smoking, I could not tolerate the smell of them. I would feel ill and cough uncontrollably. I was a closet smoker for years because of this dilemma. As long as smoking was allowed in the workplace and I worked with people that smoked one after the other, there was no way that I could quit. It made me too sick.

I quit and started smoking several times over the years and the longest time that I was off of cigarettes was five years. This most recent time, I have enjoyed living as a non smoker for the past 1 ½ years.

My Mother came to live with my daughter and I, four years ago, after my marriage ended. It was gradual at first but within a year she was with us on a full time basis. She smoked in the house despite the complaints from myself and my daughter about headaches nausea etc. and soon I was lighting up with her just so that I would not feel sick. My poor baby had to endure living in a house with two smokers for three years.

The air quality in the house improved slightly when I quit smoking in November 1998. My mother had joined me in the attempt. We swore to support each other and stop this nonsense. I was successful my mother wasn't. But for six weeks, our house was smoke free. Then it continued to be somewhat smoke free as she snuck cigarettes outside or in the garage. I didn't want to let on that I knew, because it was wonderful to be able to walk around the house without smelling dirty old smoke hanging in the upholstery and air. With the colder weather she moved indoors and blatantly smoked in front of us. The battle has been neverending since.

This past week has been a wonderful holiday for us while she visited with my Sister in Etobicoke. My daughter and I could sleep all night without coughing, even with the furnace turned up, which is what my mother tries to tell me is causing my choking. But this morning I knew, when she lit that cigarette and I was drawn out of a sound, deep, sleep by a choking spasm, that she is trying to kill me. The coughing woke me from my dream but I knew that something was choking the breath out of me. What was it? Then I remembered that she was back. I quietly walked up the stairs to get a glass of water. Looking down the hall I could see the light was on in her en suite bathroom so I continued down the hall to confirm my suspicion. The closer I got to her room, the stronger I could smell the noxious fumes. I did not need to walk right in and see her enjoying that stick of death. I informed her that thanks to her cigarette I was now fully awake and of course not wanting to listen to it, because she knows it's true, she responded "ALRIGHT."

So what do you do?

It will be murder when the smoke related illness finally takes hold of me, but will she feel responsible? Probably not, because the drugs have poisoned her brain to think that we are all complaining for no reason at all.