Smokers VS. Babies Mama's

Today an interesting conversation/argument arose while I was outside on my lunch break. At 12 in the afternoon I always go outside and sit on the bench that was placed on the sidewalk placed there by the town. On my lunch break I grab a cup of coffee from the deli across the street, and I sit down and light up a smoke.

I know some may be cringing, 2 bad habits in less than a minute. Caffeine and nicotine; everything yummy ends in 'ine'. Anyhow, I know smoking is the habit that bugs people the most, and it is not unusual for someone to walk by and say 'that's a bad habit,' or, 'You should quit smoking.' I ignore these folks, and go on puffing away...besides it's really my choice what goes into my body...and I choose to smoke, and I choose to drink coffee.

However I'm not here to justify my behavior. I'm here to justify my habits while smoking.

If I see a mother walking her baby in a stroller and they are about to pass me by, I will place the cigarette behind my back to ensure that I am not about to exhale into the child's face.

Today though as I saw a mother and child about to pass me, I hid the smoke behind my back. This woman though however decided to stop and say this: "Instead of hiding that cigarette behind you back, you should of put it out, or go across the street!" I felt my face growing hot, because as she sat there giving me the third degree the smoke was in fact clouding up all around her, and her baby. If she would of continued to walk by, this wouldn't of been an issue.

She then followed up with a big speech about how it's not right that her 3 month old is subjected to smelling other peoples smoke, and how it's cancerous, and blah blah yippity dah...

But here she was still standing there, still exposing her child to more and more cancerous substances that came flowing out of my cigarette like poetry.

I didn't quite know how to respond. I knew that by her standing there giving me this speech about what a piece of crap person I am, her kid that she cared soooo much about was breathing in my smoke.