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Broke
Wife, Big City
My
momma did raise a quitter
By Aprill Brandon
Quitters
get a bad reputation in American
society. But I've always been a bit of a rebel (I totally cut off that
tag from
my mattress even though it explicitly states you shouldn't cut it off
under
penalty of law...Ha Ha!).
And
so it is with great relish that I can
announce that my momma did, in fact, raise a quitter.
After
years of failed attempts, I have
officially been smoke-free for two weeks. Yes, I haven't had a
cigarette in 14
days. Needless to say, I'm extremely proud of myself. I mean, that's
336 hours
without lighting up. That's 20,160 minutes without that sweet, sweet
smell of
cigarette smoke surrounding me. That's over one million agonizingly
slow
seconds that tick by so loud you can feel it in your very blood.
Tick...Tick...Tick...
AH!
I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! SOMEONE GIVE ME A
CIGARETTE BEFORE I BURN THIS PLACE DOWN!
(Stuffs
face with entire one pound bag of
M&M's).
OK.
OK. Much better. Sorry about that. As I was
saying, this is quite the accomplishment for me. I've been a smoker
since I was
a teenager, which I blame on coming of age in the 90's, a decade where
the only
thing for young people to do was sit in a bowling alley and chain smoke
while
looking like what hopefully passed for jaded. Although sometimes we
young
people did switch it up and chain smoke at the mall while looking like
what
hopefully passed for disgusted at the mindless consumerism surrounding
us.
But
that was only on special occasions.
After
college, smoking had become more than
just a thing I did. It had become a regular part of my personality. And
as I
began my writing career, it became an integral part of my creative
process.
There's nothing quite like typing away like a mad woman as a cigarette
dangles
out of your mouth, the smoke slowly coiling up, making you feel a
connection to
the writers of yore who also wrote with a cigarette dangling out of
their mouth
and suddenly you feel like Hemingway and glamorous and important but
then you
quit smoking and have to write without a cigarette and now every word
sounds stupid
and when you get writer's block YOU JUST WANT TO BURN THIS PLACE DOWN
IF YOU
DON'T GET A CIGARETTE RIGHT NOW!
(Gobbles
down entire family-sized bag of
Flaming Hot Cheetos, bag and all).
OK.
Where was I? Ah, yes. How incredibly
wonderful smoking is. I mean, how bad and horrible it is.
Because
now that I'm in my 30's, it's more than
past time I quit. If you add up the health risks, the ridiculous cost
and the
fact that thanks to one too many anti-smoking campaigns, smokers are
now a step
below pedophiles on the social scale, it all equals out to not being
worth it
to smoke anymore.
OK,
OK, you caught me. It's just the cost. I
couldn't care less about the other stuff. I'd gladly look 70 when I'm
40 and
smoke in a dumpster since everywhere else is banned from smokers if a
pack of
cigarettes still costs two bucks.
But
they don't. They don't cost even close to
that anymore. Stupid anti-smoking zealots lobbying Congress to
continually
raise taxes on those sweet, sweet boxes of death that taste like
rainbows and
unicorns and are the only friends you can depend on AND FOR THE LOVE OF
JOE
CAMEL WILL SOMEONE GET ME A CIGARETTE BEFORE I SET FIRE TO THE NEXT
PERSON WHO
WALKS BY ME!?
(Inhales
entire large sausage pizza and a
gallon of ice cream).
Oopsie.
Went off the rails again. Sorry.
But
in all seriousness, I am glad that I have
finally quit. It's my first step to a healthier, longer life. And from
what
I've heard from other ex-smokers, it only gets easier with time.
So,
who knows? Maybe here in a month or so I
can finally leave my house again and interact with society without
punching
elderly women in the face (again, I'm so so sorry about that, Agnes).
And I can
live a normal life that isn't centered around being a slave to a
substance that
ultimately only decreases my quality of life.
Here's
to hoping.
(Opens
fresh bag of Doritos).
Can’t
get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until
next week?
Check
out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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