Sunday, June 20, 2010

Smokers' Compound

We passed a smokers' compound at the Frankfort airport the other day and I had to marvel at how small those retreats have become. This one is all glass but it is not much bigger than a large tabletop; you can see the three or four denizens huddled together in the purple haze. They remind me a bit of the cages that the used to haul the defendants to court in for criminal trials. It isn't air-tight: there's a wreath of tobacco-smell that extends 10 or 15 feet around it.

I suppose the lairs do make life a bit easier for the rest of us, but I do have to wonder:
  • How many romances have been born here?
  • I wonder if the real purpose is not so much to isolate the smokers, nor to protect us from second-hand smoke, as it is to give us all a moment of pharisaical self-satisfaction. Oh look at those fools and how they are killing themselves. How glad I am that I know better, and that I can blithely walk by.

1 comment:

they call me trouble said...

It goes to show that some people can't abide good rules.