Non-smoking room

Seriously - I didn't think anyone smoked anywhere anymore. In Canada - or at least in Nova Scotia - the tolerance for smoking has dropped to an all time low. No longer can you enjoy a coffee and a smoke ( a delicious favourite of many an imbiber of both vices) or a beer and a smoke or even a smoke and a catch-up chat with a friend.... not inside a public building nor even outside one ! Now there is a move afoot to penalize those poor frozen chain-smoking-on-their-break souls if they flick their butt or drop and stomp it. Someone wants to deputize Butt police !

As you can tell probably, I have a small measure of sympathy for these tortured souls, having smoked myself for 20 odd years. If it had not been for the desire to finally quit, coupled with the absurd and still escalating cost of a pack of cigarettes topped off with a $500 bet from my younger brother that I would never last the 6 months to my birthday - I would still be smoking today. I liked smoking - I liked pretty much everything about it . I loved that first smoke of the morning and that last one before arriving at work. I loved the coffee smoke and the catching up smoke. I loved the instant camaraderie between smokers that I presume is even more entrenched today. Its something non-smokers will never understand.

Which brings me to my in-laws. They have never smoked - I don't think it ever even crossed their mind. I suppose living in the English Dales with all that greenery and open spaces and lack of tobacco advetrtising contributes to that. My 43 year old husband (their son of course) has never smoked anything either. Suffice it to say they are not a fan. So - imagine the chaos when we arrived en masse to check into a hotel and discover that we've been assigned Smoking rooms ! Oh - the humanity ! Despite repeated pleas we were assured that there were no other rooms but we could have our pick of several . So off we go to sniff the various rooms and finally( after also complaining about the 'perfumery' smell in one of them and the slowness of the elevator ) settle on two. I kept quiet the whole time - very unlike me. I think I was secretly hoping that someone would smoke in my general vicinity - as death defying a thrill as I am likely to expose myself to these days. I got my wish !