After this long.

I just got home from class, I have a little more than thirty minutes before I have to run off to our opening of Broadway Your Way! This is how I choose to spend that time.

I rarely drive during rush hour as my schedule doesn't normally permit it, with rehearsal and all I'm rarely on the road shortly after five. Today was an exception. On my way home I witnessed two things that really bothered me. The first was a small sedan that drove past me, two adults in the front and a baby in a car seat accompanied by a woman in the back. The baby couldn't have been more than two months old. The woman sitting next to the child was smoking a cigarette, the window was crack in what would appear to be a pathetic attempt to not fill the cabin with cigarette smoke. The second situation was a few minutes later when the airport shuttle van in front of me had a still smoking cigarette butt fly out the window onto the asphalt.

Now here's my problem, and I'll start with my less extreme stance and then move to the more extreme one. I completely support the ban of smoking in public places, it is a disgusting activity that is a danger to not only the person lighting up. Take for instance the baby in the back seat of that car. AN INFANT!! The child cannot choose to not inhale the vast amounts of smoke polluting his(or her) air supply. The complete lack of responsibility on the part of the adults in that car is revolting. The slit in the window was only wide enough for the smoker to knock the embers off of the end of the cigarette when it was called for. This child will grow up with several lung defects from the atrocious display of parenting.

Next we have the asshole working for the airport shuttle service. It's windy today, very windy. This cigarette butt jettisoned from the drivers window could very easily have blown into the front yard of the house lying downwind of the van. Fire could have sparked, burning down whatever the wind directed it to. Yes this is an extreme outcome, and it didn't happen (I think). Even if it didn't start a fire there is still that used filter lying on the ground somewhere as a disgusting reminder of someone's deadly addiction and careless attitude towards the environment.

I feel very strongly that cigarettes should be made illegal. My grandmother stopped smoking nearly 22 years ago and is still suffering from the effects of them, currently in the form of lung cancer. So why is it that we still allow this shit? It smells awful, it does absolutely nothing good for our bodies or minds, and it kills people... millions of people! Children whose parents aren't responsible enough to smoke away from their children are forever going to be scarred, the people who actually do the smoking will suffer even more.

Yeah, I've heard it, they're addicting... All that says to me is weakness. If you don't like something about yourself or what you do, then you fix it. You stop. If you're killing yourself a little with each puff then why the fuck do you continue?! You have the power to stop it, that baby doesn't...