Satire: Please Let Me Smoke Indoors. Please.

I need a cigarette.

Sorry, let me clarify. I need to be smoking a filterless Marlboro Red cigarette in the Crown Center during my history class. 

I’ve heard the so-called facts — smoking can cause cancer and turn your teeth yellow. But personally, I don’t care. 

Loyola should allow people to smoke in any building built before 1990. I came to this conclusion while sitting in my 2:30 p.m. class on American history after 1865, listening to Loyola’s resident expert on taxation — the second-year history major who won’t stop sitting next to me — ramble on about why income tax is bad for the working class.

While being talked at, I couldn’t help but stare at the no smoking sign on the chalkboard. 

I wonder if whoever installed it realized how silly it looked. The Crown Center shouldn’t forbid smoking — it should encourage it.

Buildings like the Crown Center and Dumbach Hall were built for smokers. Although Loyola has been a smoke and tobacco-free campus since August 2021, the older halls and their beige walls are practically begging to be reunited with their old friends — stressed, college-aged chain-smokers with nicotine addictions. 

Loyola recently attempted to upgrade the bathrooms in the Crown Center, ruining what used to be cool rooms with brown tiles, brown paint and brown counters. All in different shades of brown, too.

The ‘80s really had an appreciation for the color brown. We could all learn from this commitment to nostalgia by bringing back this smoke-stained legacy.

Like a siren calls a sailor, the bathrooms used to tempt me to smoke inside them — just as many stressed students have done before. But now they’re these ugly, gray minimalist bathrooms devoid of life and character, projecting this new belief that less is more and boring is fun. 

Loyola keeps trying to minimalize and modernize their older buildings, changing the bathrooms, removing pencil sharpeners and haphazardly putting whiteboards in front of chalk boards. Loyola’s seemingly attempting to improve their buildings — but I say if they’re not broke, don’t fix them.

Any campus building built before 1990 should allow smoking inside. Think about it. Listening to a professor lecture about the state of the world can get pretty stressful. I get scared.

The only cure for my stress — the cure for my classmates’ stress as well — is to take a nice, long drag of a Number Seven to ease discussions in an 8 a.m. political science lecture. 

With a worsening climate, a worsening economy and Loyola’s sudden overabundance of opinionated frat bros, the future isn’t looking too bright.

I figure instead of looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, they should let us fill the tunnel with smoke. Instead of finding hope, I want to find a half-full pack of cigarettes someone left in a classroom. Instead of stressing about the future, I want to light up my Marlboro Red and listen to my history professor talk about the hockey league he’s in.

Simply put, smoking is cool. The New York Yankees smoked and look how many pennants they’ve won. I know I’d benefit from a little buzz to take the edge off of class and life — and I’m sure my classmates would too.

So please, Loyola, let me smoke inside the Crown Center. 

Editor’s Note: The Loyola Phoenix doesn’t condone or recommend smoking cigarettes. Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and may complicate pregnancy, according to the U.S. Surgeon General.