The Tobacco Cloud

Lately or let’s say over the past 2 months, I have been discussing with my darling husband the possibility of him stopping smoking. When we first started dating yes, he smoked, but he was on the nicotine patch and was actively trying to quit smoking. He had taken up running; so for several months I let my guard down. His motivation hit the high road and needless to say I am now married to a smoker.

My father smoked when I was a child and still does. The smoke bothered me as a child and it bothers me now. My contacts are the main problem, they get dry and irritated very quickly. When we are in the car and my hubby lights up I roll my window down and try to create a path or air between the driver’s side of the car and the passenger’s side by blasting the front vents. This annoys him more than I can literally express to you. Sometimes he swears in Italian when I do this. He blows the smoke out the window and lets the cigarette dangle outside but still I manage to get a few nasty whiffs.

I’m not the only one who tries to hinder his smoking; the entire country of Italy has banned smoking indoors in public spaces as of January 2005. There is absolutely no smoking in bars, restaurants, offices, on the bus etc… I love this rule! Italians however, smoke anyway, in cars, outside bars and restaurants and basically everywhere else. I wonder if the existence of the universal health care system here inhibits this country’s citizens from giving up cigarettes. They don’t pay higher insurance premiums if they smoke, it’s a thought I often ponder.

Since my darling husband is not a young man anymore and would like to become someone’s daddy, we’ve been discussing various household compromises regarding smoking. If I ever happen to get pregnant, he will not smoke when I’m in the room or in the car, and if he still smokes after the lil‘ ones arrive (I have been thinking about converting to Catholicism in the hopes my prayers are answered) he will only smoke in his office and will purchase an air purifier. I am attempting to confine him to his office when he smokes now or to the balconies. Today as we were unpacking, I turned my back for a few minutes and he lit up in the living room. I basically gave him a dirty look and shut the living room door and asked him to open all the windows. I did not want the odor permeating the rest of the house. Suffice it to say, he did not appreciate that very much.