Being trapped amongst tobacco while trying to get to class
“Can I bum a cigarette?”
I frequently hear this question asked around campus, especially at parties. I would like to ask a smoker this same question-but for a different reason. I would ask to bum a cigarette, or two, or four, or the whole pack, and then I would proceed to throw, with all my 5’2” might, whatever I was able to “bum” as far away as possible. Then I would walk away, smiling victoriously.
I hate it when people smoke cigarettes on campus.
A few days ago, on my way to class, I was slowly shuffling my feet and focusing on the ground to avoid the embarrassment of slipping and falling on the sleet and snow underneath me. I kept with the pace of the students surrounding me and felt like part of a herd of cattle.
Suddenly, a huge cloud of smoke burst out in front of me and attacked my face. Great, I thought to myself. I had just inhaled a giant whiff of tobacco. I knew I should have worn my protective ski mask. Hoping to escape from the smoke, I looked to my left and my right, and I looked ahead of me and behind me, but I was locked in on all sides by students scurrying to class.
I could not maneuver my way around this guy in front of me, who proceeded to take a puff of his cigarette every four seconds, making me cringe and forcing me to hold my breath as if I were driving under a tunnel. But I wasn’t holding my breath for a silly game in a car-I was holding my breath because I did not want to suck in death. I felt like I was in tobacco jail, where I couldn’t get out unless the tobacco guards tortured me with smoke until I could no longer speak.
That happened five more times that same day.
The other day, in my class, as I happily waited for class to start, some jerk plopped his back pack next to me and sat down. His odor nearly knocked me over. The stench of cigarette smoke seeping out of his jacket made him smell as if he had just bathed in a tub full of Marlboros. I had to breathe in his tobacco perfume the entire class.
But while I was suffering in my seat, he was as happy as a baby since he had just gotten his nicotine fix, and would be able to stand the class until he could get his next puff.
There should be a new ban to prohibit students from coming to class reeking of smoke. The new ban should say that if a smoker is smelled by more than five people in a class, they should be kicked out. Who likes inhaling tobacco for an hour and fifteen minutes? It certainly does not create a good learning environment.
I’m not standing here on my soap box to preach to smokers why they shouldn’t smoke-it’s awful for your body, but everyone knows that. I just want them to smoke as far away from campus as possible so that no one has to breathe in their bad habit. If smokers continue to smoke while walking to class, blowing their ashes around at innocent students, I will have to start a revolution. I will go back to my original solution to the cigarette problem on campus. I will have all my followers, and trust me, there will be many, ask smokers, “Can I bum a cigarette?”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Melanie Cohn at Melanie.Cohn@thecampuspress.com
