I was grumpy, it was cold and rainy. This was a couple months ago, so it wasn’t as cold as it has been, but cold enough. I stood at a bus stop, hoping to catch a quick ride over the bridge to get some lunch and get back to my office before my hour was up. I stood under the shelter, out of the rain.
A gaunt older man, in jeans and a flannel shirt and ski jacket, walks up, looking in the direction the bus will be coming. Not seeing one, he steps under the shelter, pulls out a pack of smokes, lights one up.
I was grumpy, it was cold and rainy. But, whatever, I can live and let live. Bus will be here soon enough. I pull out my iPhone and surf so I don’t have to pay attention to the smoker flouting the non-smoking rule at the bus shelter. I tune out.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of some interaction between a car and a bike in the green bike box that ends with the car honking its horn. The smoker reacts with a laugh. “Did you see that asshole bike?”
No, I didn’t, but since the bike probably had the right of way, now the smoker has annoyed me. “Did you know that bus stops are non-smoking areas?” I replied.
He looked at me. “Oh. All of them?” I nod.
He leaves the stop and walks away, into the rain, cigarette still smoldering from his lips.
Last night, on my way home from work, I’m tired and it’s raining. iPhone tells me that the bus is less than 10 minutes away. A lady walks up, chattering on her phone, looks up the street, doesn’t see the bus. Out comes the cigarettes.
Again, as long as she stands over there and not near me I don’t care. I stand and wait, my back to her and the wind.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a bright red spark rush pass my foot. Startled, I look down and see that the smoker has dropped her ash and it had blown past my leg.
Now angered that she’s annoying me with more than just breaking TriMet rules with her carelessness, exaggerating it into my mind into willful endangerment (“She tried to BURN ME ALIVE!” echoes in my head), I turn and ask her if she knew that bus stops are non-smoking zones. I try (and likely fail) to sound polite and genuine.
“Only the shelters,” she says, standing just outside the shelter, her arm brushing up against the glass.
“Are you waiting for a bus?” I ask, more snark in my voice.
“Yes,” she says, the phone still hiding her ear. I had obviously interrupted her phone call.
“Then you’re at a bus stop,” I reply with impeccable (to me) logic, and I turn back to watch for the bus, which soon arrives.
She keeps glancing at me even after we’re on the bus.
Look, smokers, I’m sure you all feel like some kind of oppressed minority right now. We can all live together. But if I have to put up with your poisonous, carcinogenic smoke blowing around me, can you at least try to be polite about it? Can you not drop your fucking ashes on my shoes, or set me on fire, or make grating, annoying assumptions about other people?
I swear I only get pissy when smokers piss me off about something else. If you want to flout the law, don’t be a fucking dick about it or my own, inner, fucking dick will come out.