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Smoke on the water
Thursday afternoon, one of Eri's students came in and had some time to kill so she sat in the bottom of the stairway outside the sliding lobby doors, smoking a cigarette and texting people on her cellphone.
Well, we have a cigarette can ashtray there, but nobody ever uses it. You're not allowed to smoke IN the building, so I think anyone who smokes just does so outside before they come downstairs. Infact, if you'd asked me if we had a cigarette can in our building I would have said no.
Anyway, I'm working on my lessons around 4:30 and Eri comes in spraying air freshener like a madman and says, "Can you put some water in the cigarette can? I think it's still burning because there's no water. It smells TERRIBLE in here."
I say sure, whatever. Eri goes back to her class, and I go off and get some water and put it in the cigarette can, which is, sure enough, smoking. A LOT. The smoke spreads into our lobby and makes everything smell terrible. Plus, after that last time dealing with the others in the building when we set off the bug bomb, I don't want another smoke alarm to go off.
The water starts leaking out the bottom, and the thing doesn't stop smoking. So now I have a warm and smelly and smoking cigarette can AND dirty water in our entryway.
For some reason the cigarette can has some contraption on it at the bottom, I'm not sure why. But dang this thing is heavy! I get a bucket out, fill it with water, and put the entire cigarette can in the bucket. Sure enough, that stops most of the smoking, but now we have a wet entryway AND it smells like smoke...
I picked up the lid off the cigarette can and the thing is FULL of cigarettes. Well, not really full, but there's like several inches of cigarettes at the bottom and most of them are not completely spent. So of course when this student dropped her still-lit cigarette in there, it started the rest of them burning too, like having one gigantic fucking cigarette burning. No wonder it wouldn't stop. I pour more water on them and try to put out all of the cigarettes.
Nobody told me we had a smoke bomb waiting to happen there, I swear.
I wipe up as much of the water as I can, and then I spray air freshener again. My instinct is to take the cigarette can OUTSIDE, but being as this is Japan I'm unclear on whether or not that's illegal or not, and of course Eri's class is still going on. I escape to the office and hope that the freshener works.
At 5pm I hear the sliding doors open and I hear a lot of coughing. Eri's 5pm student, a 14-year-old boy, comes in, and he's just like "ACK WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON". So I explain to him in both English and Japanese and he's just like "ARRRRRGGGHHH (cough cough cough)".
Fortunately Eri comes out at that point too, and I tell her what happened. She's like "EW, this smells TERRIBLE!!" I tell her I want to move it outside. She says that'll be ok but I have to put it in the tiny bit of space we have for trash, or we'll get in trouble. So I do that. It's FUCKING HEAVY due to being not only a cigarette can but ALSO having that contraption at the bottom and ALSO having this bucket of water around it now.
The good part is, once I move it outside, the entryway starts to clear up. I force the sliding doors to stay open in order to air out the building, and it works! By 6pm everything seems mostly normal, although I can still smell the smoke on myself and I feel disgusting.
Well, we have a cigarette can ashtray there, but nobody ever uses it. You're not allowed to smoke IN the building, so I think anyone who smokes just does so outside before they come downstairs. Infact, if you'd asked me if we had a cigarette can in our building I would have said no.
Anyway, I'm working on my lessons around 4:30 and Eri comes in spraying air freshener like a madman and says, "Can you put some water in the cigarette can? I think it's still burning because there's no water. It smells TERRIBLE in here."
I say sure, whatever. Eri goes back to her class, and I go off and get some water and put it in the cigarette can, which is, sure enough, smoking. A LOT. The smoke spreads into our lobby and makes everything smell terrible. Plus, after that last time dealing with the others in the building when we set off the bug bomb, I don't want another smoke alarm to go off.
The water starts leaking out the bottom, and the thing doesn't stop smoking. So now I have a warm and smelly and smoking cigarette can AND dirty water in our entryway.
For some reason the cigarette can has some contraption on it at the bottom, I'm not sure why. But dang this thing is heavy! I get a bucket out, fill it with water, and put the entire cigarette can in the bucket. Sure enough, that stops most of the smoking, but now we have a wet entryway AND it smells like smoke...
I picked up the lid off the cigarette can and the thing is FULL of cigarettes. Well, not really full, but there's like several inches of cigarettes at the bottom and most of them are not completely spent. So of course when this student dropped her still-lit cigarette in there, it started the rest of them burning too, like having one gigantic fucking cigarette burning. No wonder it wouldn't stop. I pour more water on them and try to put out all of the cigarettes.
Nobody told me we had a smoke bomb waiting to happen there, I swear.
I wipe up as much of the water as I can, and then I spray air freshener again. My instinct is to take the cigarette can OUTSIDE, but being as this is Japan I'm unclear on whether or not that's illegal or not, and of course Eri's class is still going on. I escape to the office and hope that the freshener works.
At 5pm I hear the sliding doors open and I hear a lot of coughing. Eri's 5pm student, a 14-year-old boy, comes in, and he's just like "ACK WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON". So I explain to him in both English and Japanese and he's just like "ARRRRRGGGHHH (cough cough cough)".
Fortunately Eri comes out at that point too, and I tell her what happened. She's like "EW, this smells TERRIBLE!!" I tell her I want to move it outside. She says that'll be ok but I have to put it in the tiny bit of space we have for trash, or we'll get in trouble. So I do that. It's FUCKING HEAVY due to being not only a cigarette can but ALSO having that contraption at the bottom and ALSO having this bucket of water around it now.
The good part is, once I move it outside, the entryway starts to clear up. I force the sliding doors to stay open in order to air out the building, and it works! By 6pm everything seems mostly normal, although I can still smell the smoke on myself and I feel disgusting.
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Depends on city or ward ordinances. If it's not illegal to smoke on the street then you can put the can out there. And usually if it is illegal to smoke on the street, by now they've advtertised the fact by printing it on the sidewalk.
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Whatever happened to the simple bucket of sand idea?
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Or do you not leave the sand in? I'm not really familiar with how these things are cleaned.
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Smoking bucket
:D
That should be a National Lampoon movie or something. That's a hilarious story.