Where I live, the indoor smoking bans started in the early 2000s. Before then, people that went to bars and clubs ended the night smelling like cigarette smoke whether they themselves were smokers or not. Sometimes even eating out at a restaurant would leave you smelling like a smoker. Back in those days, though, I was still so used to it that dealing with it was second nature.

For most of my life the smell didn’t really bother me, but I’ve found that within the past 5 years or so it does.

As a child, I guess I just grew up with it, so it didn’t bug me much. I hated being teased about it at school, which was a regular thing. I also used to hate how the tar would build up on the walls of our house to the point where it would form tear-like patterns. My parents kept an otherwise reasonably clean and tidy house, but for some reason THAT didn’t bother them, so periodically I’d spend a few hours scrubbing our walls to get rid of the stains and cut down on the smell a bit.