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Old Habits
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Smoking was banned in restaurants as I was growing up. Smoking was banned at my university. No one in my family smoked. I haven’t been exposed very much to smoking in the spaces where I have occupied. But now, in the big wide world when I do smell cigarettes, it’s like they produce the most foul, oppressive miasma I’ve ever encountered. If someone is smoking near me, I can taste stinky ash on my tongue. I have no idea how people lived when everyone smoked everywhere, all the time. They must have just gotten used to it. Public spaces are so much cleaner now.
My Dad smoked 2 packs a day his whole adult life (and died of lung cancer — he lived until 86.). As a kid, the smell was so familiar, I kind of liked it. But yes, now it’s like a sewer.