eebmore: Pointing and Laughing

Pointing and Laughing

May 01, 2006

About five years ago or so, some friends and I made the miserably long, hour plus drive down to a well known DC music venue to catch one of the throngs of bands that pass over this market and play only Washington instead. Watching the show from the mezzanine, surrounded by cigarette machines and ash trays, we were smoking. A young couple immediately to our right, who reeked of fresh out of college and new to the area, were glaring at us. At first, we were confused and had no idea what was their problem. Soon enough, she began waving her hand in front of her face and we realized she had a problem with our smoking. Being in a BAR and a MUSIC CLUB and surrounded by ASHTRAYS, living in Baltimore, where we had not yet received the memo that it was rude to smoke while attending punk shows in BARS at MUSIC CLUBS, surrounded by ASHTRAYS, we laughed it off and continued to smoke. This made the female of the couple progressively angrier, and she became more and more demonstrative with wavy, in front of the face, hand flapping. She then began to nudge her boyfriend, indicating that it was time for him to be a man, walk up to us and tell us to stop fouling the air around her. Not being the man she had hoped for, he responded by only glaring at us more hatefully, to which we responded by intentionally blowing smoke on them.

It was a good time, but it indicated to me that the city of my birth and I had gone down two divergent paths. Obviously, we were in a clash of cultures. They were in a culture where it was rude to smoke in a bar; we were from a culture where it was rude to behave as they were to strangers in a bar for doing what was perfectly legal and encouraged by the establishment, what with all the ashtrays and all. They were dumfounded that we would be so rude, we were dumbfounded that they would be so rude, and neither of our camps made any new friends that night. I felt particularly disconnected from the city where I was born and in whose shadow I was raised. I had only left the inside of the beltway a few years before, and either the city had or I, had changed.

Regardless, I came to the conclusion that I would not be driving down to DC to spend money anymore. It is too far to drive, get drunk, be treated rudely, and then have to drive all the way back to Baltimore. No big loss. I had been in the process of slowly washing that city right out of my hair for some time. Smoking that coffin nail and being treated so rudely for it was the final nail in the coffin. Due to irreconcilable differences, DC and I were dead to each other.

Whatever. Who cares? Just go over and read extraheavymarcellus’ hilarious tale of war between the Baltimore smokers and the Californian visitors. It’s the best local post I’ve read by anybody in quite some time. Good stuff.

03:53 PM | Permalink

Comments

Totally agree with you and extraheavymarcellus. I am a non smoker and always have been, but when it's clearly posted that people can smoke in a public place, whether it be bar, club, or restaurant, then I have one of two choices: (1) suck it up and endure it. (2) Don't go there.

Don't feel bad about being rude - you weren't. She was out of line trying to impose her self righteousness on you.

I mean, atheists don't generally hang out in church, and I doubt many vegans go to MacDonald's or KFC on a regular basis. If you're that disturbed by a practice that is perfectly legal - no matter how much you find it morally or culturally distasteful, avoid places where it takes place and deal with it. Please.

Posted by: Broadsheet at May 1, 2006 04:26 PM

Broadsheet, of course you agree with us. We’re all in Baltimore. We all know the etiquette... here. My little blah blah didn’t happen here though. DC, for better or for worse, is a town for newbies; at least in the white, marshmallowy center (thanks Colbert! Marshmallowy, indeed.) It was so forty years ago when my parents both moved there separately in their twenties for work, it is now, and it will be forty years from now. Much like any other transient community, culture there will be homogenized and quickly sway with the winds of change. If considering public smoking in legal places as being evil and rude is the new black, I can assure you that in DC, the etiquette will change with the snap of a finger. At that point, I was gone for a whole 3 years or so. In a transient community, 3 years is like 3 generations. You would have thought that we had walked right in out of the 18th century, whoppin’ slaves and selling cotton by this couple’s reaction. I think we were committing a social faux pas, regardless if whether the laws had caught up with us or not. It’s easy for us, living where we live, to condemn this couple as being the rude ones. Had that happened here, it would have been as clear as the nose on my face; but we were in a very different place, with very different social norms, and I was detached by 3 years and had no way of knowing the etiquette du jor... not to mention having moved to a place where things change unusually slowly.

extraheavymarcellus’ story was totally different. First of all, it was a gazillion times awesomer. Well, actually, it was just a gazillion times awesomer. Others from elsewhares came with their values, threw them around and cunted it up real nice and good, verbally insulting the city and everything about it, and it blew up in their faces in such a beautiful way that I got a little bit of an erection just reading it.

Posted by: eebmore at May 1, 2006 08:01 PM

whoops. I just realized I incorrectly overaged my mother. seeing how she reads this crap, that could get me into a lot of trouble. she was in her teens when she moved to DC, and is still fifty something. sorry, moms.

Posted by: eebmore at May 1, 2006 09:50 PM

Seriously DC is such a terrible place. It is the regional capitol of self importance, with only NYC and LA beating it. Secondly with their swanky new zero tolerance alcohol driving laws, even having trace alcohol on your breath will put you in the DC slammer for the night if you are driving your car. In an ironic twist, Charles County, MD formerly second only to Raleigh, NC in tobacco production banned smoking from bars and restaurants. Crazy, neh? And for the record: Baltimore to DC: Suck it.

Posted by: bryan at May 3, 2006 11:35 AM

I am still working on the boner I got watching such a lovely smackdown. I was never so proud to be a Baltimoron. I almost went to the corner store for a pack of smokes to show my support.

Posted by: eXtra heavy at May 3, 2006 11:09 PM

Comments close after posts fall off the main index page.
Have more to say? Please mail me:
eebmore at yahoo dot com.