Going up in smoke over a policy

I abhor smoke. Even an agarbatti gets me fired up more than itself. This obviously means I have little patience for tobacco fumes or people belching them. So imagine my horror to test positive for nicotine considering I have never smoked.

I thought it was a mistake, until I was promptly educated about how insurance companies, especially multinational ones, never make one. Even if you are paying through your nose to ensure your family has something to fall back on in case you pop it, there’s no way they can go wrong.

It’s bad enough that the doctor coming to collect blood and other body fluid samples rang the bell at 6.45am. But the shocker came with the results. This would of course necessitate, I was told, paying “a wee-bit more” on a par with smokers if I wanted the insurance.

So, all these years of doing what everyone keeps saying is ‘the right thing’ was brought to nought. What really has me worried is how some gooey tar-like substance is depositing in my lungs and seeping into me every minute.

I asked a few doctors and pharmacologist friends and they said it is common among people exposed to smoke regularly. I was given reference from a Lancet study to show how this can build up to dangerously high levels.

The office doesn’t allow smoking so where am I getting it? Just by passing through the smoking corridor? Isn’t it bad that we breathe pollutants and dust that we need to add to it? By now, angered enough, I put it up as a status message on Facebook and among the responses was this scorcher: “Smoking in public should be condemned. If some people have decided to burn their lungs and undergo dhumramoksha, it’s fine!! But they should not feed non-smokers their exhaled filth”.

Whoa! Quite strong. So I’m not the only one raging against this problem. There are of course those who think one should smoke any way and have suggested I begin puffing way once in a while.
On another note I admit, that I like people with a smoker’s sand-papery voice and have tried to live with a sore throat without medication often to hang on to that right amount of baritone. Since I’ve no patience to go through the blah formalities, paperwork and tests yet again with yet another company and I’m buying this policy anyway, niggling temptation to then go the whole hog and light up is beckoning.

I’ve been told that after the initial coughing and sputtering it’ll be fine. There’s only that one problem of mom and wifey though who aren’t going to be too amused by the ‘pious’ thoughts the policy has brought in its wake.