Although I respect peoples right to smoke, it does annoy me when I get back home after having a drink with friends at some bar and all my clothes stink to nicotine. Some bars are worse than others and, when possible, I try to dodge the real bad ones. Luckily, nobody at work seems to smoke which is a good think because it saves me the need to ask them not to do it there – as I respect their right to smoke, I expect smokers to respect the ones who don’t wish to be passive smokers. The 72m euro campaign with shocking images promised by the european commission seems to be lost into oblivion (or did I miss something?), so while we wait for it, I’ll leave a short story I find particularly funny that happend sometime ago.

Like any other mediterranean bloke, Portuguese people are avid coffee drinkers and university students are no exception. It’s usual around the universities to find a big concentration of places where people park to have their after-meal espresso cup. It’s possible to find a wide range of places for all tastes and wallets, but there’s one which is particularly looked for, probably because of the owner charisma and his sympathy and service with the costumers.
Once, there were a couple of girls waiting to be served and, meanwhile, were smoking and using the previous clients coffee cups to put their cigars ash. The owner, didn’t find this very amusing so when he brought their coffee request, he served it in two ashtrays and left, without saying a word. They did the same seconds later after paying, and my guess is that they didn’t return there so soon neither used coffee cups has an ashtray.