No Smoking, Please...

First off, let me put my biases out there: I hate smoking. I can’t think of a more arrogant habit than polluting public space with a toxic substance that is in no way necessary.

Just over a year ago, I was pushing my three-month-old baby in a stroller; stuck right behind a guy who was smoking and taking up most of the sidewalk. His smoke was blowing in my baby’s face, and his girth almost eclipsed the sun, so I asked him if he could either put the cigarette out, or move to the side and let us pass. He turned to look at me and said, “F^*k you. This is a free country.” Wow.

Before my (relatively) recent socio/cosmic epiphany, I would have slapped the ish out of him for a) stealing my joy, and/or b) disrespecting me and my baby. But I’m a changed man, so I looked at him and said, “How can you even talk about freedom when you are an addict? You know that what you’re doing has the potential to kill you and those you love, yet you do it anyway. You don’t know what freedom is.”

If I had a camera, I would have snapped a shot and emailed the photo to everyone I knew. It was so funny. He got really red, his jowls trembled, and his face scrunched up like he just sucked six lemons. He made a threatening step towards me, so I stood in front of the stroller. I warned him that I actually enjoyed a decent fistfight and that I was more than capable of giving him a run for his money. He thought about it, and since he was who he was, he resorted to, “F^*k you, nigger.” Like I haven’t heard that before.

I let him know that he crossed the line and that it was my duty to protect my baby from idiots, like himself. And that if he took another step closer, I’d have to cave his chest in. You have to understand, my old self would have choked him out for disrespecting me the first time. But I am trying to honor the experience that I had—mentioned earlier in this post (more on that experience at a later time)—so I’m making attempts to walk a more righteous route. I gave him an out: Get out of the way or I’m going to hurt you.

I’m blessed with quickness so I snatched the cigarette out of his hand and crushed it. It was worth the pain of the cherry burning my palm to see true fear in his eyes. Then, I just stared at him—not blinking for even a millisecond. He eventually moved to the side, making the choice not to look me in the face. As I walked past him, I thanked him for letting us pass. He didn’t respond.

My baby slept through the entire incident.