How much more dangerous is a second hand smoke than stress?

You know that stress is harmful to your health, right? With this in mind I'd like to thank all the anti-smoking zealots for damaging both my physical and mental health in their efforts to save my lungs from a little second hand smoke.

I've worked as a waiter for about 9 years. During those years I always liked working the smoking section on a busy night. Why? Because a busy night is stressful enough when you work in food service. I never understood why the hell it is that when people go out to eat, presumably for a nice relaxing meal, they turn into impatient pricks who all show up to eat at around the same time but fail to realize they're not the only table I have to serve and that the kitchen is having to cook for. Not only do I have to endure the stress of taking orders, getting the food out as soon as it gets done and all the while having to keep that ass hole's tea filled because they drink way to fast but expect the cup to never run dry, I also have to take time to stop and take a few minutes to nicely explain that they're not, as they should be able to look around and see, the only people in the place.

Unlike the non-smoking section, where you're not going to be able to avoid dealing with a bunch of these pricks, smokers are almost always a way less stressful group to deal with. In the smoking section you hardly ever encounter those impatient pricks that make an already stressful time 100X worse. Sure I have a couple of hours, and the levels of anything you deal with as a server are only high from about 4-7, where I breathe in their smoke. But, contrary to what you may believe, most of the time of a server isn't spent at their table. So during those 3 hours I'm only spending a few minutes here and a few minutes there. To tell you the truth, the most disgusting part of working in the food industry isn't the smoking section. Its the nasty grease that permeates the air, even when there isn't a single smoker in the place. At the end of every shift my skin is all greasy and no doubt my lungs also. Not to mention that, unlike the smell of tobacco smoke, you can NEVER get that damn greasy food smell out of your work clothes.

As for the whole worker's health crap, which is what the crusaders masquerade as the purpose of smoking bans, I wish they would visit with the servers they're trying to protect so that they can ask us what we think about the ban. Considering that most people who work in food service are smokers anyway, I'm sure they'd tell you to go fuck yourself.

I wonder if we could get a food industry worker class action law suit going against the anti-smoking zealot groups for damages, physical and mental, that have resulted from them pushing to take away my choice between working in the low stress smoking section or the high stress non-smoking section. Because, in an effort to protect me from damage that may or may not happen 20yrs from now, they're forcing me to deal with higher levels of stress that are doing me harm right now.

Small dog owners.

I'd just like to point out to small dog owners that it's not cute when you're 3lb dog tries to pick fights with your neighbors 50lb dog. So don't go bitching at them for vet bills when your dog gets torn up.

Why do I bring this up? My neighbors own three of those teacup rat dogs that they let run around their front yard, even though they have a fenced back yard. That wouldn't be much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that during the last couple of years, rather than just running around their yard being cute, they end up coming into my yard where they proceed to shit all over the place. Well, being as I don't have a fenced yard and have to tie my two dogs, one in the front and one in the back (tried putting them both in back but they tangle their leads and get hurt in the process) for their morning/late night bowel evacuations. I can't count how many times I've gone to take them out and had their rats out there snarling and barking at me or had my dogs out when all the sudden there's a bunch of barking and gone out there to find one of their dogs about 10 feet out of my dog's reach acting like it wants to fight. They know their dogs try to pick fights with mine, yet they still let their dogs out in the front yard even if mine are out there!

Well, the other day one of their dogs got the fight they've been looking for. My girlfriend was leaving the house and one of their yappers was standing in the front yard and started growing at her. One of my dogs bolted through the door and went after it. After years of their dogs harassing mine and them not even having the decency to use their back yard, or at least not let their dogs out while mine are, they have the nerve to bitch at me about a $400 vet bill!

I'm sorry their dog got hurt and all but I'm sure as hell not forking over any cash because, after years of letting their dogs be out of control, mine got out of control once. I know that, if my dog picked a fight with a dog 10X bigger than it, I sure as hell wouldn't expect the owner to pay me anything.

Why it's pointless to argue with an anti-smoker

Are the anti-smokers brain dead or just trying to rationalize their hate? Any conversation with one of these people, online at least, seems to go something like this:

Anti-smoker: Smoking in public (most include outdoors and bars/eateries) should be banned. You may have the right to smoke, but you don't have the right to give me cancer too! Besides it stinks!

Me: A little secondhand smoke isn't going to give you cancer. As for stinking, I think most perfumes, cooking fish and curried rice stink. You won't see me, nor do I think I have any right to, run around trying to ban people from wearing perfume, cook fish or curried rice.

Anti-smoker: Secondhand smoke does cause cancer. There's been studies done that prove it.

Me: No, there's been tons of claims that studies have proven it. However, if you take the time to read the findings, they prove no such thing. In fact, the WHO(world health organization) study showed a decrease risk of lung cancer among children who grew up with smoking parents but never took up the habit themselves.

Anti-smoker: I shouldn't have to put up with the smell of you smoking.

Me: Haven't we gone over this? All sorts of people hate the smells of all sorts of things. That doesn't give anyone the right to keep someone else from doing it, even if the smell offends someone.

Anti-smoker either responds something like this or drops out of the conversation and some other anti-smoker jumps in: I have the right to breathe clean air. I don't care if you want to give yourself cancer, just don't give it to me!

And it just goes round and round. There's just no way to break them of the irrational fear of secondhand smoke. Which brings me back to my opening question. Are they brain dead or just trying to justify their hate. I've come to the conclusion that it's the latter. I've seen the same people have very rational discussions on many other issues. If you look at any society in the past, the one common thread is the hatred of some group and being the good PC liberals that they are, they can't hate Blacks, Jews or Hispanics. So now smokers are the new for them to hate and, just like your nigger haters of old, there's just no point in trying to show them how irrational they are.

Couldn't it be that they've just bought into the anti-smoking hype, you ask me? I'd have to say no. After all, these same people see right through the latest study that links illegal drugs to , further proof they're not just brain dead. Yet they'll believe same type junk science, a lot of which is funded (along with smoking ban initiatives) by the same damn people that makes stop smoking aids like nicotine patches, in regards to secondhand smoke.

So, in closing, I'd just like to say this: WAKE UP!!!!!! All this secondhand smoke crap is the same as all the anti-drug crap and brought to you by exactly the same people. If you know they're lying to you about drugs, then at least have the intelligence to looking into everything else they say.