Smoking in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport is proving to be quite the challenge.  There are no longer smoking rooms in the airport, a fact I was unaware of.  It is 85 degrees and smoggy as hell outside where they bannish all nicotine addicts to wither away for their sin.

We had just walked off the plane for our long ass lay-over when I decided it was time to fing the smoking area.  Mom decides to walk with me to find a smoking area out of her need to walk and stretch her legs.

After 30 minutes of searching, I just happened upon a friendly airport employee.  We’ll call him Pedro.  Pedro, a kind worker of the facility, not the airlines, said to me “We don’t have smoking rooms anymore. I would encourage you to slip into a stall in the ladies room and smoke(star wars smoking pipes). It should be okay.”  He smiled.

“Um… yah.  Let me tell ya something, buddy,” I said obviously annoyed already. “It is clearly marked all over this God forsaken place that anyone busted puffing a satan stick in the bathroom will be promptly and stiffly fined.  Not to mention that they would most likely imprison me in the bowels of the airport in some make-shift jail until I confess my sin.  Now why would you tell me to do that.”

“I was just trying to help, Miss.  You can always go outside,”  He said, rolling his eyes and walking away.

Yah, I think Pedro gets kickbacks. I can just see him watching me slip into the bathroom.  Eyes crazed with anticipation. It would go something like this:

“This is Pedro.  There’s a crazy white chick with pink Nike shoes and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt about to enter stall three to light up.”

Needless to say, I decided to go outside for a smoke. Once.

In order to have this simple pleasure, I had to stand outside, 15 feet from any human activity.  This is pretty much in the path of the fumes from the never ending parade of buses and trams. Eh, mixed with the heat and the smog, I decided to deal with it.  It wasn’t so bad.

What prompted me to hold off my intake of required nicotine level until landing in Deutschland tomorrow was the hassle of going through security over and over and over and over.  Once was enough.

I refused to go through having to remove my shoes, waiting in line to pass them and my purse through the x-ray machine.  Putting my shoes back on and walking a mile back to the gate we were assigned to.   Seriously, I’ll pass.  Got any Nicorette?

What ever happened to designated smoking areas in the dang airport?  You know the glass cubicle of death that even though it was ventilated it resemebled the great town of Los Angeles with a smog bank at bay?