Etiquette Rule #523

Etiquette Rule #523

While at the marketplace, one should not place a handful of chewing tobacco in one's mouth. Chewing tobacco is generally considered vulgar, and if one must partake, one ought not do it in public, particularly in mixed company, particularly while in front of the fish stand, and particularly while pushing one's child in a stroller.

One of the things that took some getting used to when I first came to Ohio was the fact that restaurants still had smoking/non-smoking sections. Smokers were driven out of restaurants a long time ago in good ole Cali, and that's the way it should be. Food and cigarette smoke just don't go together. Not even bar food, in my mind, is improved by the lingering aroma of nicotine.

So when some guy just stops in the middle of the West Side Market, right in front of the catfish and tilapia, to stuff a huge wad of chewing tobacco into his cheek while his pink-poncho'd daughter looks on, I almost felt nauseous. EWWWWW. That is just disgusting. Thank goodness I wasn't there to see him spit it out.