Don't judge me. I smoked for a long time and even though I quit a long time ago now, I still miss it. Oh sure I know it's bad for you. The terrible taste it leaves in your mouth; the screaming headaches, the dingy nails, the dullness in your skin; it's all disgusting. But I will protest it all, I liked smoking, I liked the way it made me light headed. I liked the way it curbed my hunger. I liked the time it gave me to clear my head. Oh I miss that most. Stress would roll in and I could decompress in 10 minutes by simply stealing away behind the garden shed with a Marlboro light. I never smoked publically and NEVER in front of the children. Nope I would hide. Sure the neighbors knew I smoked and if I drank with you then you knew I smoked. But the general public nope - they never knew.
A few weeks ago I stole a drag off a friends cigarette. Ahhhh, it was delightful. Then I felt so light headed that I thought I had better hold onto something so I didn't fall. The next morning my head was near explosion, the pain was so intense. Then there was the taste. YUCK! I brushed my teeth four times before the taste finally went away. You would think that, given all of that, I would remain stedfast in my resolve to maintain my non-smoker status. Really I need life insurance and I already failed the physical once because of those stupid cigarettes. It has been the only test I have ever failed. Well you would think, now wouldn't you??
Why then did I recently find myself standing in line at the SA asking for a pack of "Marlboro Light shorty's please?" Because despite years of academic inquiry, I am total idiot! Worse yet I am a cheap and Catholic idiot. Two facts that are fundamentally relevant. First I am cheap, so I gasped when the clerk asked me to fork over near 6 bucks for the cancer sticks, that is two school lunches, or 3 cups of coffee, or 6 iTunes downloads, or glass of wine, all of which are better choices than smoking 20 cigarettes. But I hand it over, too embarrassed to abort the mission at this point. Second I am Catholic. This means I have a relationship with guilt that is more intimate than the relationship I have with Adam. Guilt rules me and I am powerless against it. It is guilt that quickly rises and makes clear that my reaction to current stress is just shy of needing to be picked up by the paddy wagon. I recently received word that two more members of my family have been diagnosed with terminal cancer. One a grandmother that has already lost her husband and daughter to cancer and the other, my father. My father is a tricky situation to deal with and I am not equipped to reconcile with it at this time. Yet he is dying of lung cancer, certainly related to the years of smoking filterless cigarettes. Thus you see the flaw in my reasoning.
Which leads me to the next stage of lunacy. I drive down the road and I can't light the cigarettes because my car didn't come equipped with a lighter and I no longer carry one with me. I consider this a sign from God that I am not supposed to fall off the no smoking wagon. Yet there is a pack of Marlboro's laying next to me, pleading with me to pull into a gas station and buy a lighter. Fine. I look for said gas station only to pull off in a neighborhood in Minneapolis that I am not familiar with and end up crossing paths with a sign holder at the top of the exit ramp.
His sign says "anything helps."
Hmmmm? "Well here ya go. How 'bout a pack of Marlboro's," I say. He says, "Thanks, got a light?"
ha ha! Curse you irony!
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