Welcome to Smokerville. No Truth Commercials Here.

Living in another country and experiencing a new culture there will definitely be things that I will bring back home with me. Things like an obsession with scarves, a sophisticated taste for wine (no more Franzia for me), a reliance on napping to get me through the day and lung cancer. I am convinced that I will come home with lung cancer from all of the secondhand smoke. There is no Clean Air Act here. And worse, no interest in one either. The bars, the clubs, the streets, the restaurants are filled with cigarette smoke. Even the airports have designated smoking boxes. Everyone smokes. And the worst part of it is that the smell never leaves, it follows me everywhere. I’ve actually thought of becoming a smoker since I wreak like one all the time and since I’m inhaling everyone else’s smoke, my rationale is that my chances of getting cancer can’t be too much higher if I just smoke myself. It’s a stupid thought process but I’ll never smoke anyway because aside from the fact that I can’t stand the smell, I get an allergic reaction to the smoke, it makes my eyes dry, my throat itchy and I start coughing. When I get back to my room after a night out, the smell that the smoke leaves in my hair and clothes is as potent as the smell of the guy’s side of the hallway in the dorms at Denison. Both odors I rather not have to encounter and even try to hold my breath as long as possible to avoid. But I’ve given up on trying to hold my breath when someone’s smoking. I know it’s bad when I’ve surrendered and have even started to get used to it. The worst part is that I have to watch out where I stand or dance in the clubs and bars because people have been burned by smokers carelessly holding their cigarettes. One of the girls here has a burn mark on her arm. The sad thing is I was excited to be in a small town with cleaner air and less pollution, until I found out that the pollution has been replaced with cigarette smoke. I would take polluted air over smoky air any day. Asthma is so much better than lung cancer. Maybe I’ll start my own Truth ads here in Toledo. I bet if Spaniards ever watched a Truth commercial they would think twice about smoking. Until then though, I’ll be here filling my lungs with cancer, taking more than one shower in a day and airing my clothes out the window.