I was idling at a very long stoplight the other day when a small car pulled up beside me, ferrying three females, two of whom were taking long drags on short cigarettes. This would not concern me in the least except that the third occupant of the car was a young girl, sitting in the front passenger seat.
Being an enlightened modern guy, acutely aware of the evils of secondhand smoke, I immediately formed an opinion on the scene playing out beside me and it wasn’t a happy one. I felt a judgmental cloud move in over my head as I put the inevitable two and two together: The girl was being forced to breathe in the smoke from women I guessed to be her mother and her aunt, and probably suffering damage to her tender lungs as a result.
To their small credit, the two women – one in the driver’s seat and one in the back – had their windows down a crack and were flicking ashes from their fags through the openings. And the girl, who I judged to be between 10 and 12 years in age, had her window partially down too, no doubt trying desperately to get some fresh air into her hurting chest.
Now, I’ve been told by friends and acquaintances that, despite my rather monotone demeanour, I have an expressive face that broadcasts my emotions like a flashing billboard, especially when I’m upset. And so, my gaze towards my neighbours in the next car cut like a laser and was soon noticed by its riders, even the young girl, and all three began stealing furtive glances at me, no doubt wondering what the heck could be wrong.
In this enlightened age, could a man be blamed if he put his car in park, climbed out and knocked on the window of the car beside him and suggested the women butt out? I think not and that is the thought that crossed my mind and I came very close to doing it too. It even occurred to me to somehow rescue the young girl and escort her to some authority somewhere, to provide a smoke-free safe haven for her. Maybe drive her over to the local health unit, located in a building on the other side of the traffic lights.
But, I didn’t do either of those things, and I’ll tell you why.
In the many moments that passed at that light that day, with my glances shooting their way and their glances shooting mine, something happened to remind me of why community activism, citizen’s arrests, public interventions and all other kinds of individual heroism are not in the cards for me, relating to my sometimes extremely poor ability to accurately assess situations, all the circumstances of which seem so apparent to me at first sight.
I inched my car forward slightly, to get just a bit better look at the girl, to see if I could confirm my first assessment of her age. She appeared to be pretty young, all right. She saw me looking, and glanced my way. Then stared straight ahead again, lifted her arm, put her hand to her mouth …
And took a lengthy pull off her own cigarette!
It’s always been amazing to me how quickly a man can lose interest in a thing. I turned on Canadians Boring Canadians (CBC) on my radio and caught up on the latest news, as my smoking neighbours revved their engine and prepared for the green light that was about to appear. But rather than leave me in the dust or the smoke fumes as I might have hoped they would have done, they instead stayed even with me in the middle lane for the next five blocks or so, sticking to me like a guilty conscience, or a nicotine stain on an index finger, or whatever.
For my part, I looked straight ahead, peering neither to the left nor the right, a practice I intend to cultivate daily from now on, whether driving or walking, and no matter what I witness my neighbours doing, age notwithstanding.
©2003 Jim Hagarty
