Utensils

SECONDHAND SMOKE EXPOSURE AND CARDIOVASCULAR EFFECTSutensils

Committee on Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Acute Coronary Events (National Academies Press, February 2010, ISBN 9780309138390)

The backroom at La Casetta lived under a haze of smoke. No fan whipped it into turbulence. No window let it escape. Instead, from opening to closing, it hung in unmoving bands like the smog over a miniature city with skyscrapers of stacked pizza boxes. I liked to imagine Remo, the manager, nailing up the ‘no smoking’ sign while smoking a cigarette.

The drivers smoked on one side of the room while they waited for orders to come in. The receptionists smoked on the other next to the telephones. A long stretch without orders had caught me in the crossfire of their combined output. By the time the call came in, I’d wheezed through a nicotine cloud for twenty minutes. I didn’t know it then, but at that moment a receptionist listened to a tenacious customer explaining the importance of delivering disposable cutlery with his meal. Continue reading

  • You might also like

    • Space Zombies!

      Illuminae is a visual wonder piece of science fiction narration. It straddles the undefined landscape between novel and graphic novel in a way that is almost cinematic in its execution. Rather than a story told in a series of words, what we have are words presented as in a dossier; … Continue reading