Contrary To Popular Belief...

I remember fondly one summer night in my youth, at the ripe age of thirteen, being left alone in the family home with one of my step father’s packs of cigarettes. I recall staring at it longingly for nearly an hour before I unfortunately decided to reach out and grab one. After all, everyone (and I do mean everyone…with the exception of one or two) in my family were avid smokers and I had to figure out what the calling was to this horrendously aromatic habit. Looking out the doorway for any sign of a parental presence and listening into the wind for the slightest hint of their vehicle’s return, I popped one into my mouth and put a flame to it with the precision of someone that had been doing it for years. After five minutes or so had passed…and I was able to pull my shoes out of my mouth from coughing them up through my ass…I realized that I was officially one of the ‘cool kids’! You know the ones I’m speaking of! The ones that hung out in the junior high school bathroom in between classes and behind the gym during lunch hiding out from educational authority like they were on a black ops mission in which there was little chance of returning…just to get a few drags off of a cigarette. Of course, these guys had failed the eighth grade a few times over and already possessed their own driver’s license in order to drive themselves to school…but they had really cool hair! It was a damn good thing that I wasn’t interested in any type of athletic prowess or the chance to be an Olympic runner of any sort because there was no way whatsoever that I was going to be able to pull off those activities and smoke at the same time. Hooked. Throughout the years that followed, my family warmed up to the fact, at least to my face, that I was a teenage smoker and there was nothing they could say or do that would be able to stop me. Even if they tried, there was no way they could be around me twenty four hours a day to prevent me from partaking in my daily poison. There are times now that I wished they could’ve invented something to make me stop. For years after, I dodged the kings of high school curriculum every chance I got for a miniscule taste of smoke between periods…and I never got caught. I was the cigarette smoking master. Years later, once I landed in Fort Jackson South Carolina, I began to realize that those fiery sticks were demonic in nature and no longer a friend of mine. Running mile after mile and coughing up lung after lung in the name of Uncle Sam…every ounce of nicotine that ever existed within my body was pouring out in the form of sweat before the sun would ever raise its lazy head above the horizon. Eight long weeks without smoking behind me…I graduated a minion of lady liberty and did the one thing that I was not allowed to do nor had any access to during my boot camp. I bought a pack of cigarettes the first chance I got. People say that crack cocaine is hard to quit but two months later…I still couldn’t wait to have that first cigarette. In 2006, I watched my step father die quickly and painfully from lung cancer and it had no affect whatsoever on my plans to make tobacco companies richer than what they already were. As a matter of fact, mere seconds after he took his final breath, I was outside smoking a cigarette as I cried. Evil is alive and well in this world and it comes twenty to a pack. Even in some pagan literature and Wicca texts, tobacco is referred to as a demon. Don’t ask me how I know that but in a strange sort of way…according to some closed minded people’s points of view…that would be like calling the cauldron ‘black’…no witchcraft puns intended. It’s been twenty four years since I stuck the first one in my mouth as a kid and I am finally on a successful mission to quit for good. Not because my wife begged me or my children expressed concern over my health…but because I want to. All those failed attempts throughout my life were from the requests of others instead of me. It’s been a week now…and the multiple voices in my head that usually formulate these little rants of mine are all speaking at once without the slightest hint that they’re going to shut up. I’m not even sure how I’ve gotten this far into the rant without giving up honestly. Food that I have been eating and loving for more than half of my life now is tasty beyond belief…but some of it is downright disgusting. I’m not sure if I remember if it tasted that bad before or if my tongue is simply confused but cream of chicken soup is the cousin of Satan and I’m trying to convince the president that it’s responsible for acts of terrorism and we need to kill it, not take any pictures, and dump it in the ocean before anyone can film it. I used to love it. My sense of smell has begun to return also and that, my friends and enemies, is the purpose and point of this entire rant to begin with. To the middle aged, over weight ladies of this world that are convinced and under the false impression that perfume is an even substitute for bathing…you’re dead wrong. Chances are…your hoo-ha has been wafting up from your lap for so long that your own nose is used to it and has come to accept the fact that you’re not even going to remotely lift that lump of fat out of your lap to give it a good scrubbing. I know it would be heartbreaking to disturb whatever it is you’ve got going on down there whether it be the remnants of a small, furry animal or a collection of chicken bones from years of KFC consumption…but come on…do us, the non smoking public, a big favor and run the fire hose down there from time to time. Honestly…I don’t know who I should put more blame on…the person carrying around the stink pouch and stirring up funk the likes of which I’ve only smelled on prison field trips or the husband/boyfriend that puts up with it and fails to notify them that the crotch brew is boiling over and it might be time to remove the flames. Now, it’s obvious that some of you are going to be offended by this little bit of information and even a little upset that I’m stirring your lunch ever so slightly at the mere thought of people smuggling catfish across the border of their granny panties and may believe that I’m full of myself and my shit doesn’t stink. I beg to differ. It stinks terribly and almost makes me want to start smoking again so I don’t have to experience it. The only difference is…I don’t bring it to the noses of the general public unless you were that unfortunate guy in the stall next to me today who’s ‘Wings To Go’ were trying to leave in a violent and loud fashion…earning their namesake. In an odd sort of way though…perhaps the cigarette companies were trying to help humanity with their product. They were well aware that it dulled the delicate senses to the stinky, nasty tasting world around us and just wanted to lend a hand to make it a little more enjoyable and tolerable. After all, according to them, there is nothing more enjoyable than a hole in the throat that makes you have to speak through one of those hilarious microphone things. Imagine the fun you could have at a drive thru window with one of those. On the bright side…at least you wouldn’t be forced to smell stinky crotch unless it was by choice. That particular choice is a different rant altogether…