Smoking outdoors bothers non-smoker

DEAR AMY » What is the best way to handle smokers at an outdoor event? I enjoy going to summer concerts at my local riverfront, but inevitably a smoker will sit next to me. I choose not to smoke for a reason, and it literally makes me ill to breathe cigarette smoke. I get tired of constantly having to move, only to have yet another smoker light up next to me. Is there anything I can do? — Non-smoker DEAR NON-SMOKER » If smoking is legal at your outdoor event (and it likely is), the only thing you can do is politely ask a smoker, “Would you mind sitting downwind of me? Cigarette smoke really gets to me.” The person will either comply (or may self-consciously stub out their cigarette), or not. If they don’t comply, you will have to move your seat.

DEAR AMY » “Tattoo Hater” was distraught that her daughter has gotten tattoos. I liked your response.

I think many tattoos are quite beautiful, but I also advised my children against getting them. Of the three, two have tattoos, and they are beautiful, but all I had to say to them is that when they are 60 or 70, they are going to look awful.

I used to work in a nursing home, and one of the residents there was a former “Tattooed Lady” from the circus. Let me just say, that her tattoos did not hold up well. As she aged, the inks faded and kind of melded together, so that the artwork was blurred and unrecognizable. Her skin was a bluish green wherever the tattoos were. I told my children about her, as a cautionary tale. But they were grown-ups when they got the tattoos, and, in the end, it is their body, even if I produced it. — Love the Kids, Hate the Tattoos DEAR LOVE THE KIDS » My uncle Harvey was in the Merchant Marine and had the requisite ship and anchor tats on his arm. Over the years, that ship sailed (so to speak), but I loved him, so I loved his tattoos, too.

Contact Amy Dickinson via email at askamy@ tribpub.com.