Wala's will never be the same again... without the smoke. The recent ban on smoking in public places including pubs, clubs and kopitiams have caused a stir in the air, or more accurately, a lack thereof. For someone who relish on the consumption of free double-filtered smoke (second-hand smoke), i am suddenly stumped on where to go for my next inhalation therapy.
And then all of a sudden, in a room packed with people, you can actually tell the colour of the eye shadow of the girl across the floor!
I can see clearly now, the smoke is gone,
I can see all pimples on her face
Gone are the smoke clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a sad (sad), sad (sad) Sad-lonely night.
Yesh, gone are the days of the lingering smoke that obscures your vision into thinking all girls in the room are surprisingly beautiful. Nowadays the threat of
"Argh!!! My eyes! My eyes! Quick! Look away godammit! Peel! Peel!" are clearly real and unmistakable in any of these nightspots.
Gone are the days where the free mixing of cigarette smoke creates a unique blend of nicotine-flavoured air that cruises through your bronchi and fills your lungs with satisfaction, but not before leaving an acrid stench on your hair and clothes as an indelible signature that you had a night of fun somewhere other than the office.
Now, wafting through the air is the fragrance of freshly deep-fried calamari from the next table. And when the lemon is squeezed, the zest rides atop the waves of sleek vapours to add to the crispiness of the air.
mm-mm!
The experience is life-changing indeed.
When you visit the washroom, cigarette butts decorate the floor and urinals, mostly near the wide-open window (used to be closed shut), and someone is taking quick swallowed puffs looking out of it.
It used to be that asking for a light or a cigarette is how you chat up the opposite sex. Now it is
"Sorry, can you look after our beer/table/calamari while me and my buddy go for a puff? We'll be back in a while, thanks. Hey would you like to join us?" Not that it is any less effective, but either them going off together or not still deprived me of my therapeautic regime.
A Washington Post columnist laments the implementation of a similar smoking ban in D.C. with respect to the cigarette as the essential tool for flirting in
Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke . Full on. But the smoke stick is not wiped off the face of the earth. In fact, it has now recruited a new partner in the form of tables/beer/calamari that has to be babysat. Don't discount the power of the smoke-break so soon.
On the other hand, what is of concern is that although the ozone layer may benefit from this ban, the depletion of the smokescreen layer in the room still has a detrimental effect on dating. It used to be that the worst place to pick up girls is at a nightspot because it is poorly lit, girls are heavily made-up, you are half-drunk at least, and there is the smokescreen. Now, without the smokescreen, you have one less factor to impair your judgement into thinking that girl is kinda cute. All that you can rely now is on your blood-alcohol level, the amount of spoilt light bulbs, and perhaps the transient mist swept up from the upper crust of blusher/foundation by the strong drafts of perfume. How many a man would hesitate at the last moment because the wind changed direction or the light flickered back on, and what was meant to be, well, it never did. The ultimate most reliable source of dis-clarity in the form of a constant curtain of smoke particles all thanks to Brownian motion would have delivered the package unflailingly.
There, they have done it again. For the good of the majority, and of course, everyone's health, a well-intentioned change indirectly contributes to the nation's declining birthrate.
In the meantime, i forsee that the sale of calamari will be reaching unprecedented heights, garnering record profits for the years to come. So dim out the lights, put on more make-up, drink up more beer, you're gonna need it.
