For Your Smoking Pleasure

“If I quit now, maybe I’ll last out the year,” I said to myself, for the umpteenth time.  Many times I say it out loud when I’m sitting on our front porch having my first smoke of the day.  Its four or five a.m. and dark out, before the dawn’s light.  “Stupid cigarettes!” is another favorite of mine, which I say even more often. 

I’ve been smoking almost continuously since I was 14.  Cigarettes cost 35 cents then, from a machine no less, which cost more than the Deli.  Now that I’m 62, the green phlegm has started. Now I always  cough some up the first thing in the morning, which Google says is a bacterial infection of the lungs. I’ve got to stop. But I like smoking, even though my liking it has masked my addiction.

For years I’ve been smoking Salem 100s. I refuse to buy regular cigarettes anymore, and haven’t for a long time. Regular cigarettes cost the same as 100s, but are an inch shorter.  100s are a better value for the money, but not the lungs. Since 2007 I’ve bought my cartons at Smokin’ Joe’s in Morrisville, just across the Calhoun St. Bridge.  It’s a six mile trip from Yardville, but saves me $20.00 per carton, well worth the extra gas.  At 7/11 for example, when I buy a pack because I’m out and must have one, the clerk says “That’s $8.59 please.” “You’re kidding,” I say, then hand over the cash. I don’t do that often!  

At Joe’s a carton is just $65.00, and lasts me about three weeks.  My wife Janet still digs me a little when she pays the monthly credit card bill, but I don’t mind. Considering I only have four vices - cigarettes, coffee, breakfast every morning, and a Saturday movie with friends, she lets me slide. I don’t drink alcohol or do drugs, so that’s not an issue. Besides, she doesn’t have any vices, so what can I say?

A carton lasts longer if I’m not on my regular schedule of one an hour from morn until after dinner. Baha’i and other meetings force me to refrain. And, the writing’s on the wall. Rite Aid doesn’t even sell cigarettes, and CVS doesn’t sell Salems. The laws against smoking in public places, office buildings etc., have only gotten more restrictive.  And the stigma has deterred me from lighting up near others, especially kids.  I haven’t smoked inside a building for the last ten years, except my garage.  Alone, especially in the cold and rain.

I started smoking in Grammar School in 1964.  To be precise, it was Sacred Heart Grammar School on South Broad St. in Trenton.  All of us were “good” Catholics, attending Mass every morning before class, and on Sundays.  Still, practically all us boys, and half the girls, smoked Marlboro’s by 8th grade, the most popular brand.  There was no way to avoid that rugged cowboy on TV or billboards pushing the things. Even TV shows and movies had smokers.  Winston’s were also popular, and their motto “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should,” was ubiquitous.  TV advertising showing actual smoking was banned in 1971; smokeless advertising was banned in ‘86.  

In the tobacco settlement of 1999, all cigarette billboards were replaced with anti-smoking messages. In a parody of the Marlboro Man, some billboards depicted cowboys riding on horses with slogans like "I miss my lung, Bob."  So, you see what I mean, the writing’s on the wall for smoking.  Now I just have to convince my body and mind.

I actually convinced myself to stop cold turkey in 1992, the Holy Year.  That year Baha’is  commemorated the passing of Baha’u’llah, Prophet Founder of my beloved Baha’i Faith, and I was inspired, which doesn’t happen often.  My wife Janet and family were ecstatic I stopped, and I got a lot of praise and more kisses.  But it only lasted for two years before I started again, when I felt added pressure to perform at work.  I was in the habit of going out and buying lunch as a replacement for smoking, and just bought a pack one day at the Deli.  I can still remember that first cigarette, which was awful.  But soon I got right back on the Salem's horse.

Then in 2003, I tried the nicotine patch, wearing it on my shoulder every day for three weeks or so until the urges stopped.  That worked!  But then in 2005, I hired away Ed Mercer from the Division of Building and Construction, to come work with us in the Energy Office.  We hit it off great!  Ed’s knowledge and experience with all things energy related was phenomenal, and I couldn’t learn enough from him.  I started accompanying him on his cigarette breaks every day, first only bumming a smoke occasionally.  After two months I realized how persistent I was getting, and bought my own pack. 

So much for that!  I started out only smoking 4 or 5 cigarettes a day for the next few years, but then I retired in 2009 and got into my current routine of ten a day.  It’s still a bit better than the pack a day I smoked during my youth and young adulthood.  But you don’t have to tell me that’s not good, I really do know.

Also in 2005, Janet and I went to see Thank you for Smoking with Aaron Eckhart. Aaron plays Nick Naylor, Big Tobaccos's chief spokesman. A totally underrated movie, it was so bad (in a good way), it was comical. Aaron was the glib defender, actually making sense in his arguments/statements about smoking. The satire was thick, but got all the points across. But the movie poster says it all - a man's body, looking like a politician, with a big bright campaign button on his chest. And, a frightening-looking lit cigarette head, trailing smoke. Ugh!

Janet lets me smoke (outside only - which I don't mind at all), and I appreciate that, even though its insane that I do so. When I come in the house after having a smoke, she’ll say, in only her tone, “You stink!”  I know its really bad when she says "Oh God!" I then spray myself a few times with Glade Fabric and Air Freshener, which we keep by the door, just for me.  It’s a regular item on the shopping list.  At first I really got ticked off when she said it, but now I just feel a moment of guilt, and it passes quickly.  Mouthwash is on the shopping list too. Smoking and its smell is disgusting, and I’m glad it’s banned in so many places.  

I count the days until I stop.  I’ve set a goal, the publication of my memoir “Episodes of ABLiA (A Blessed Life in America).”  Its part one, of two or three books. I finished a decent draft in mid-December. Please pray for me to get it printed.

I'd like to get rid of my periodic smoker's cough too.