So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[jamespowers]

It annoys me when people put their cigarette out in my cigar ashtray.

Of course. Why let them use your ashtray for something so plebian as a cigarette.

 

[Stearmen]

A blind human----or one eating with chopsticks.

Around here, one in the same! :eeek:

 

[HudsonHawk]

Of course. Why let them use your ashtray for something so plebian as a cigarette.

I don't. That's the problem. They use it anyway. And it's not that the cigarette is unsophisticated, it's that people crush out a cigarette, rubbing ashes into the tray. You, of course, don't do this with a cigar.

 

[Fading Fast]

Hudson Hawk, based on your posts about safety (God I hope I'm not confusing you with another member, I don't think I am - if so, my apologies) over the years, I'm surprised you have many (any) smokers around you and I assumed (we know the joke associated with that word) that you didn't smoke?

I believe in free choice and everyone has, IMHO, the right to chose to associate with and to be a smoker oneself if one wants to, I just thought it seemed like something I would have bet you never got near.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Hudson Hawk, based on your posts about safety (God I hope I'm not confusing you with another member, I don't think I am - if so, my apologies) over the years, I'm surprised you have many (any) smokers around you and I assumed (we know the joke associated with that word) that you didn't smoke?

I believe in free choice and everyone has, IMHO, the right to chose to associate with and to be a smoker oneself if one wants to, I just thought it seemed like something I would have bet you never got near.

No, you don't have me confused. I'm often on about safety, as it's been drilled into me from many years working in the oil and gas industry, including around drilling rigs and in refineries, where one small lapse in safety can wipe out a whole neighborhood. That said, I smoke an occasional cigar, and my wife has friends and family who smoke cigarettes. The latter are often at my house, usually when I'm not, wallowing in my pool, raiding my beer fridge and pushing out their cigarettes in my ash tray. It's funny...I don't have any friends, family or coworkers who've been divorced, but I know an inordinate amount of smokers.

 

[Fading Fast]

HH, all cool. I cannot remember the last home I've been in where anyone was allowed to smoke inside. I've been to many where the men smoke cigars outside and the occasionally cigarette smoker of either gender does as well, but it seems in my narrow experience that indoor smoking was over.

 

[HudsonHawk]

HH, all cool. I cannot remember the last home I've been in where anyone was allowed to smoke inside. I've been to many where the men smoke cigars outside and the occasionally cigarette smoker of either gender does as well, but it seems in my narrow experience that indoor smoking was over.

Oh, nobody smokes *in* the house. I don't know of anyone who allows smoking inside their house anymore.

 

[2jakes]

Oh, nobody smokes *in* the house. I don't know of anyone who allows smoking inside their house anymore.

My next door neighbor smokes inside his house ! :eeek:
Luckily, my place is not close too his, but one time I went over to give him his mail
that was left in my mailbox.
The moment he open the door, the stench from cold smoke (a/c was on) hit me like as if I had been punched
in the chest.
I was only standing by the door way but it was strong.
I declined politely when he invited me in & somehow made it back ( eyes were watery from the smoke).

Sad thing was that at the time he was not smoking, but the years of smoking had taken it's toll on
the poor house.
I can only imagine how his lungs must look.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can guess about the lungs from radios and television sets I've worked on that came from the homes of smokers. I had a little kitchen radio once that was covered inside with thick yellow nicotine-laden tobacco-smoke filth -- so bad, in fact, that I got sick from handling it. I had to soak the chassis in brake cleaner to get all the crud off.

 

[Zombie_61]

...It's funny...I don't have any friends, family or coworkers who've been divorced...

Really? My wife and I were married August 22, 1981, and everyone we know who got married within a year of our wedding day has gotten divorced except for one couple--my wife's sister and her husband, who got married 34 days after us. And most of the people we've met since have been divorced at least once. [huh]

Oh, nobody smokes *in* the house. I don't know of anyone who allows smoking inside their house anymore.

:wave: :hat:

 

[HudsonHawk]

Really? My wife and I were married August 22, 1981, and everyone we know who got married within a year of our wedding day has gotten divorced except for one couple--my wife's sister and her husband, who got married 34 days after us. And most of the people we've met since have been divorced at least once

Yeah, it's funny that way. Perhaps it's because I'm of that generation who's parents were the first to ramp up the divorce rate. Many my age have parents who are divorced, and many have said "not me". I don't know, but it's a curious phenomenon.

 

[Fading Fast]

My experience is that all of our friends who got married are stilled married (and we are in our early 50s, so this covers about thirty years of marriages). I can't think of one of those marriages that has ended in divorce. I know divorced people, but haven't been to one marriage in my life that I can remember that has ended in divorce. That's why I'm always amazed at the "half of all marriages end in divorce" line. I assume it is reasonably accurate as I hear it regularly, it is just so outside my personal experience that I am a little suspicious.

As to Lizzie's comment about smoker houses: after my father stopped, we scrubbed the house (and the house was always clean) to get rid of all the filthy residue everywhere. My Dad, who did not part with a dollar easily, even let my Mom spend a few dollars to replace a few things and have someone come in and freshen a few things up (for things we didn't have the skills or tools to do ourselves).

It was a house transformed. It looked fresh, smelled fresh and stayed fresh as there was no longer any smoke dirtying it up. That said, after my father passed away, we were cleaning out his stuff and when I opened a file cabinet he kept (and that hadn't been touched in probably twenty years), the smell of smoke was very strong. It must have clung to all the old records and papers. It was sad and redolent of him - of him before he stopped smoking. I was incredibly glad he had stopped smoking, but that smell was a bit nostalgic because it was him from my early childhood.

 

[F. J.]

Suspicion confirmed . . .

[...]
That's why I'm always amazed at the "half of all marriages end in divorce" line. I assume it is reasonably accurate as I hear it regularly, it is just so outside my personal experience that I am a little suspicious.
[...]

It’s not. The divorce rate has been declining since its peak about three and a half decades ago.

 

[LizzieMaine]

None of my group of close real-world friends are married -- one is cohabitating and might get married, one has a boyfriend who shows up when he wants something, one has an on-and-off-currently-on boyfriend, one is actively interviewing candidates, and the rest of us are single. One is thirty-three and would sooner drive a spike thru her head than even look at a man other than her gay best friend, another is fifty-three and gave up on such things over 25 years ago. And I'm a confirmed devotee of Marjorie Hillis, Living Alone and Liking It.

Of the friends I knew who got married in the late eighties, when we were all young and innocent, all are divorced now. One got married to a guy who she supported all thru law school, who then decided he didn't want to become a lawyer after all and left her to go backpacking across Yugoslavia. She divorced him, and when he got done backpacking he came back home and didn't have anywhere else to go, so he moved back in with her, and they're now running an artisanal goat farm. There's a moral there somewhere, but I have no idea what it is.

My sister has been married since 1988, largely because her husband is absolutely terrified of her. If you think I've got a mouth, I'm a minor leaguer compared to her.

 

[pawineguy]

I've only a few friends who are divorced, but I do have to say that my favorite part of second marriage is running into people at the reception, trying to figure out when you've seen them last, and then both parties simultaneously realizing that it was at the first wedding.

 

[2jakes]

I grew up living with 4 majors & one in the minor leagues as far as attitudes is concern.
And the last one is the only one I can maintain a friendly conversation today.
The others have taken the term "control freak" to new heights !
I get along better with people not related .

 

[sheeplady]

My experience is that all of our friends who got married are stilled married (and we are in our early 50s, so this covers about thirty years of marriages). I can't think of one of those marriages that has ended in divorce. I know divorced people, but haven't been to one marriage in my life that I can remember that has ended in divorce. That's why I'm always amazed at the "half of all marriages end in divorce" line. I assume it is reasonably accurate as I hear it regularly, it is just so outside my personal experience that I am a little suspicious.

The divorce rate was extremely high for boomers, but as far as the "half of all marriages" it was never that high even at it's peak, more in the forties percentiles. And remember that it is not half of all people married, but half of all marriages. There are people who have been married 7 or 8 times; they drive up that percentage significantly. Also, remember this counts rush marriages, marriages of convenience (such as for health benefits), etc. Chances are that if you have been divorced once, unless you fix some things (choice of mate, behavioral patterns, finances) you will get divorced again. This kind of makes sense.

Most of the parents of my generation growing up were divorced at some point or another. These were people who would be in their mid-sixties to mid-fifties now.

The divorce rate for my generation is less than 30%. They say it is around 30% for non-college educated women, but women with a four year degree the divorce rate is 10%. Those are rough percentages from my working memory. For our parents it was that high forties percentile. Which considering how many of our parents couldn't make their marriages work, it's pretty stunning that so many of us in our 30s and 40s have gotten it relatively right. (They don't know why there is a difference between college educated women and non-college educated women as far as divorce for my generation; it didn't exist for our parents.)

 

[Stearmen]

The divorce rate went to 43% in 1946. Not surprising, when the men came home and took off their uniforms, and the women got a dose of reality! It wasn't higher until 1975, and did hit the low 50% range in the early 80s.

 

[Zombie_61]

Yeah, it's funny that way. Perhaps it's because I'm of that generation who's parents were the first to ramp up the divorce rate. Many my age have parents who are divorced, and many have said "not me". I don't know, but it's a curious phenomenon.

Whenever anyone asks how my wife and I have managed to stay married for so many years, I joke that it's equal parts stubbornness and stupidity. But I honestly believe it's because we both had parents that were role models. My wife's parents had been married a little more than 40 years when my mother-in-law died in 1986, and my parents had also been married a little more than 40 years when my dad died in 1987, so my wife and I both had those long-term examples while we grew up and grew older. Sure, our parents had disagreements and faced difficult times, but they worked through them together and were committed to each other, and I believe that's a key factor.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Back to things that tick me off...I may have mentioned this before, but can't remember, but....

Backpacks. When I am dictator, anyone caught wearing a backpack will be summarily stuffed into said backpack, hung from a tree and beaten with a baseball bat until the rivers run red with their blood.