Smoking.
It’s been a couple of weeks now that I’ve actually been trying to start smoking. Really, I have. Everyone makes it look so cool. I used to dip snuff for about 4 years. It was good. It satisfied, it tasted okay, it relaxed me after a long day of whatever it was I used to do. I quit dipping after basic training. At the time I couldn’t wait to throw in a fat pinch of my preferred snuff and sit back and relax with some good country music. Total hillbilly. I tried to get back into that habit and just couldn’t do it, I would gag, get nauseous, spit on myself, it was a habit you had to really work at. Lately though, looking for a stress reliever, and after watching all my friends light up for months, I decided I would try to start smoking. I hadn’t smoked in a while, I mean, I know how and everything but I never really was a habitual smoker. I never bought cigarettes before, I always just bummed them off someone who happened to be smoking. I never cared for the taste or smell but the image always seemed cool. Yea, that’s a silly thing to say but it’s true. As far back as I can remember I thought people smoking looked cool.
I can see my uncle and aunt, firing up some cheap ciggarettes and just seeming so in control. Television always made smokes seem like the thing to do. Any badass on TV would fire one up at sometime or another or make a comment like “Man, I wish I had a smoke right about now.” It was just a thing to do if you were cool. So maybe smoking wasn’t cool, but the people who did smoke, they…were cool. And it’s dumb that a mid twenties male can still watch TV and still feel like someone who is lighting up is cool. Makes me want to run out and smoke one down to the butt right now thinking about it pretty much all of Samuel L. Jackson’s characters. Likewise, alot of the people that I’ve worked with over the years, the guys that I looked up to were always smokers. They were the guys that made the funniest jokes, worked the hardest, got the best women, just great to be around. That basic idea of a smoker has always been the same for me. I mean, I’m sure alot of people I found undesirable also smoked but I never paid them any attention so, doesnt matter. So I decided to take up smoking.
Let me tell you something about smoking, it’s alot harder than it looks. I mean, you’ve gotta learn how to hold it, light it, the brands to buy, your stance while smoking. Forget about trying to learn to enhale again. Coughing fit after, coughing fit. It’s a pretty complicated routine for someone just taking it up. It’s even more difficult because at my age, I’m expected to know all the little ins and outs. It’s been a couple of weeks now and I’ve purchased two packs of cigs. I didn’t smoke all of those, I probably gave away about half of that to people just standing around. Smoking does have the side effect of winning you alot of friends, or at least conversations. Smokers, flock to smokers. They see someone they have some common ground with and there they are, not to mention they can bum a smoke off of you if they forgot theirs or are just too lazy to go retrieve their own. So I guess that could be seen as a positive. Yes, it is a positive, I by nature don’t talk to people just for no reason so, that has been something I’ve enjoyed about smoking.
But is that reason enough? Probably not, smoking is a bad habit. I’m trying to break into the habit, but I just dont think I can do it. Smoking is hard. It cost money. It makes you stink. It stinks. People who smoke make other people who don’t stink, stink. (When they smoke around them.) Right now, the cons far outweigh the pros. Sure it is relaxing, it may make you look cool, cool people do it, but it’s just not enough. No as for this guy, I think I’ll go and pack a fresh can of premium moist tobacco, kick back with some down home country music, kick back and spit in an old beer bottle. But more than likely I’ll just buy a soda and watch TV. Minus any tobacco.
A. Cat
