You're Going To Die!

I pick up my girlfriend from the small car park that serves the Oncology and Chest out-patient clinics at Addenbrooke's hospital. Around the car park are numerous 'Do Not Smoke In This Area' signs. There is one approximately every eight feet along the railings that surround the car park.

Until fairly recently, there was a huddle of plastic chairs in one corner of the car park where, in spite of the signs, staff from the hospital would come out and smoke their fags.

A few months back, Addenbrooke's Hospital Trust made the entire hospital site a smoke-free zone (I think there is an exception in the accomodation blocks and the Leisure Centre, but that is all). This means that in the small car park, where I pick up my girlfriend, the pattern of 'Do Not Smoke In This Area' signs have been interlaced with even more signs informing people about the smoke-free site policy. The smoke-free site policy means that you are not even allowed to smoke in your own car while you are on the site.

In spite of all this, I quite often see people smoking in that small car park. I hate having to breath other people's smoke at the best of times, but here, just a few feet away from where people regularly get told that they are going to die from smoke related illness, I have to say I relish in pouncing on the offenders. I know for a fact that when people smoke in the car park, the smoke has a habit of trickling in to those very rooms where people are being told that they only have a few agony-ridden months of life left. I try and tell them politely that they are smoking in a smoke-free area. Before I approach them I have put them on their guard by having given them a hard scowling-at. Then, ideally, they will give me a 'What do you want?' sort of a look. That is good. I can then close in on them with an enquiry as to whether or not they are aware that they are smoking in a smoke free area. They rebel. They stupidly tell me that they don't care. Or what am I going to do about it? The argument ensues. I make an arse of myself with my self-righteous idignation. However pompous and stroppy I get, though - I know I can't lose in this situation. They always give up in the end and stub the cigarette out. Victory is sweet.