smoker

I still smoke. It's not as though after thirty-five years there were anything left to enjoy about it, except perhaps a sense of reliability. A dejected Susan Tyrell nails it on the head in Andy Warhol's 'Bad' with this line. "I just love smoking... it's always there." I am aware of how glamorous I look; cowering in the rain outside of restaurants, huddled around a trash can at one of Disney World's designated smoking areas. I've put myself and everyone around me through the hell of quitting several times. My greatest success has never been more than a few smoke-free months. Remembering the nightmares and every waking moment in despair, it was hardly worth it. I know they say not to, but I've smoked wearing the patch. I've chewed the gum. I've taken pills. I've had needles stuck to my ears. I've 'visualized' myself as a non-smoker. I've set my resolve so firmly at times the ultimate failure has left me with none. Funny how you only get a certain ration of personal resolve. You might use it up any number of ways; trying to be more environmentally conscious, less judgemental, a more trust-worthy friend. Then you finally arrive at a clear understanding of how full of shit you are and it's gone. Resolve this. Does it make me a weaker person? I can still ride a bike. I can run a couple of miles. I'm a good friend. But I shudder to think what might happen if I 'resolved' not to kick every person I met. I took the boys to a roller skating party. The 'entertainment' was a group of rappers who receive a grant for promoting non-smoking to the youngsters. Now to tell you the truth, I really didn't even want a cigarette until after two or three songs about how evil they are. I can turn it off like that, for movies or funerals. I thought about sneaking out for one but would pretty much have had to walk through the rappers to get to the exit. I didn't resolve to stay as much as I just couldn't suffer the irony of leaving. I should have. "Any of you boys and girls know anyone who smokes?" My two shot up their hands like they were going to get a prize. After being pointed out for a crane-necked shame-on-you look from everyone in the rink, I didn't resolve not to follow these rappers out to the parking lot to kick their rhyming little asses (and catch a smoke) as much as I didn't need to add 'leaves his children unsupervised' to my list of crimes. I should have. (I'm only mildly effective as a supervisor anyway) While listening to one person talk about how they quit years ago but can still smoke as the occasion warrants (while gaming), another interrupted, scrolling through her camera phone to 'show me something'. I'm thinking to myself , "No one keeps lung autopsies in their phone gallery, it's gotta be some relative with an oxygen hose". Nope, lungs- one pink, one black. I won't belittle her genuine concern, if not for me, for my kids. Message received. It's been delivered time and again. But if sound reasoning were to solve everything, we wouldn't have medications that produce more symptoms than they cure, banking hours while we're all at work, and two different kinds of screwdriver. I'm sorry but here's where I have to 'go glib'. Making cigarettes more expensive has only increased my sense of entitlement- I pay more taxes than non-smokers. Banning them in the work place has made me a bad choice as an hourly employee. I can't afford cigarettes and health insurance, so I'm driving up the cost of nothing. The nationwide campaign against them has created a sub-class of people who once thought it was a matter of choice to smoke, like wearing eye-watering doses of Rive Gauche or eating three times as much as you need to. I'll take the elevator ride with smokers, thank you. I'm not saying it's everybody's right to smoke anywhere, anytime. Second-hand smoke is a matter of ventilation, proximity, and manners. Those were the tools that it seems were just too costly to use to integrate a segment of society who, in my jaded opinion, are much more fun to be around. Establishments that hoped to sell me a three-dollar cup of coffee would have done well to spend a bit of that profit on air-circulation. I frequently atomize gallons of paint and solvent into the air without even seeing or smelling it. The technology is there. Instead, bars and restaurants have chosen to heat the outdoors. If that is supposed to resemble a fair accommodation then why isn't it offered to the people who were choking on other peoples smoke inside first? I'll tell you why. Smokers have less they can bitch about. We generally don't tell other people what they shouldn't be doing. We accommodate our addiction like some do their fear of escalators or their mistrust of foreigners. We take the long way around. We stay home. We adapt.