The Cancer Corridor

The smoking habit continues to boggle my mind, each and every day. There's this one section of sidewalk between the stage door of the theatre I work in and the 7-11, where I like to get coffee, that we've dubbed "Cancer Corridor." When you walk out of the stage door, you encounter a sidewalk tumor of culinary school students, all smoking. It makes me not want to eat at any of the restaurants in Pittsburgh, since I've seen how dirty all of the young cooks are. Then, you walk down the sidewalk toward the 7-11 past a bus stop. Another sidewalk tumor that spreads out nearly the length of the block, and again, all smoking. I'm going to have cancer before I'm 40 from second-hand smoke.

Fortunately, my trips to the 7-11 are far fewer than they used to be now that I've started drinking the coffee in the rehearsal hall. However, I've realized that really, just about every sidewalk is a cancer corridor. And the smokers are just not very respectful of the non-smokers. I get smoke blown in my face all the time - people walking toward me, people walking in front of me - I can't seem to get away from it!

And here's my last and biggest rant about smoking. What makes smokers think that their butts are just going to disappear into the ether and not be a pollution problem????? The alley that I walk down every day just got repaved. I walked down it just after the pavers left and it was a beautiful (Ok, not really) expanse of new asphalt. I walked back down it that evening and it was FULL of cigarette butts. It really made me see the problem pretty clearly. Why can't smokers see that it's a problem?