Lighting Up In Las Vegas
By admin on Jun 8, 2009 in People, Places And Things
LAS VEGAS IS NO PLACE for a former smoker. Years ago, when I returned to a former employer - a prominent Toronto talent agent’s office - I never thought that the second-hand smoke would make me want to light up again. (It was a smoking office, even in 2003). Especially not after being nicotine-free for nearing a decade and a half. Even after that amount of time, I enjoyed the odd cigarette. And I missed the physical act of smoking. Don’t get me wrong. I never enjoyed jonesing for nicotine, or gasping for air was I walked a flight of stairs and a cigarette smoke often nauseated me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the act of lighting up and butting out. Back in the day, I happily puffed away in my cubicle between collection calls and typing reports, or while explaining the details of our company’s requirements for estate settlement.
Looking back, I cannot imagine what work life might have been like for those who did not smoke to spend the day working in a smoking office.
At least I couldn’t until I stepped into the casino of The Excalibur, a castle-shaped hotel that looks like a cheesy Disney knock-off.
Because smoking is permitted in the casinos, which we had to pass through everyday two or three times per day, by the end of day three my sinuses were in overdrive.
In the years after they corralled us into a smoking room and after bi-laws pushed smokers outdoors, I discovered I am allergic to tobacco. Hence the sinus headaches. But that did not stop me from hankering for a smoke. Because nicotine can be absorbed through the skin into the blood stream, it was as if I was smoking anyway, so I plunked down $7.95 USD and tried to enjoy a beer and a cigarette at a jackpot machine.
No dice.
Maybe it was the beer; maybe it was the American brand of smoke. Either way, I crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, downed the beer and headed back to the hotel room to lay down. Suddenly, I was as nauseated as the night I practiced inhaling a large, regular, duMaurier in my parent’s basement when I was 13 years-old.
And it was likely I was the same sickening shade of pale, too.
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