NICOTINE!!!

The above picture was taken in a Montreal cigarette store. You don't exactly need to read the words or even speak French to figure out what this pack was trying to convey.

My mother had smoked as long as I could remember, among all the warnings it could do to you or your children. I later understood why, of course, but when I was a kid I chose to be outside most of the time and managed to acquaint myself with nature. Maybe that's what I need to do to quit?

Anyway, my older stepbrother Dan got me to smoke when I was 7 years old. I was afraid of him at that age and did whatever he said, so I coughed and hacked and got very high and floaty. I walked outside and puked a few minutes later and the dog cleaned it up immediately. You'd think that would be a detraction.

When I was 9 my mother was napping and had left her pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. I decided to try one once again and lit a cigarette from seeing my mom doing it so often. I even had the pose down, arms and legs crossed holding it out with a supported elbow. I took one drag and blew it out, and the second one I inhaled and began to choke again. I spit into the sink and flushed the cigarette down the toilet. The next morning I woke up and there were sticky black spots on my teeth that freaked me out completely. You'd think that would also be a detraction.

I first started polluting my lungs with marijuana, not cigarettes, at 19. I managed to stay nicotine-free for two years after that and then the stress from working at Jasmine's in Collegetown got to me, and I started associating the coworkers' pleasure and calming effect with sucking on that tobacco stick. I decided to try it. It made me dizzy and a little nauseous, but I was suddenly very calm this time. That was the kicker. I also found out they worked very well with alcohol seeing as how I had just turned 21. I've been smoking ever since, save a month or two off at a time when I got really ambitious and crabby as a result. Unfortunately, smoking had an evening-out effect that made me tolerable. Otherwise I can come to some pretty disturbing conclusions by impulsive thinking. I know I have to find my Zen elsewhere before I quit, so maybe I should collect worms and beetles in a jar of dirt like I used to.

Here's one more humorous tribute to smoking via my favorite satirical newspaper, the Onion:

Traverse further higher places