Non-smokers

I would really like to open this one by posting a dozen pictures of my non-smoker friends smoking my cigarettes.  I won't do that, of course, because to do so would be to out them as casual smokers/moochers, and there's no need.  They know who they are.  These are the people who ask me to remove from Facebook really pretty pictures of myself because they can be seen in the background puffing on a Parliament.

What's going on with Parliaments?  When I started smoking, everyone smoked Marlboros and Camels.  When did all the cool people start smoking Parliaments?  I don't care.  I'm not switching.  I smoke Marlboro Light 100s which are 5,000 yards long.  I need a

Nifty Nabber to light them and I'm not ashamed of that at all.  They last longer than regular cigarettes.  And they make me look ridiculous, which is of no concern to me.  Not when I'm getting cigarette savings.

I have been a smoker for a long time.  I started at 16 for the same reason that kids in after-school specials smoke: I had a friend who tried.  Also, it was the only thing I could do and get away with that was "bad" because I didn't have the balls to get bad grades or drink, and I needed to defy my parents in some fashion.

My mother loves to tell people the story of how she found out about my smoking.  First of all, let's just get out of the way that I was really a piece of crap as a teenager.  I was smoking in my bedroom.  I wasn't fooling anyone and I wasn't even trying.  Although I was sticking my head out my window, my window was right above the kitchen window.  My mom was making dinner and she smelled smoke coming down from upstairs.  She came banging on my door.  I opened the door and she said, "Are you smoking in here?"  I looked her straight in the eyes and said, "Yeah."  Then I slammed the door in her face and turned up "Guns in the Sky," ("Well, I'm sick of it.  It's a load of shit!")  I was SO DRAMATIC.

Then my mom grounded me for like, the rest of high school, which is why I never went anywhere when I was in high school.  I snuck out to smoke and write and give blowjobs in cars, which is the way it seems to be with parenting: if you try to control your kids, you will just make everything worse.  What my mother should have done was sit me down at the kitchen table and force me to smoke pack after pack of Marlboro reds (that's what I smoked back then) until I puked.  Then I'm sure I would have never smoked again.  But as is was, she drove me to suck dicks.  It's the same old tale.

I've never even considered quitting smoking, even though, as all sentient human beings know by now

For this reason, I am obviously NOT a proponent of smoking.  It is a filthy, disgusting habit, but it is addictive for many reasons, and I like to do it when I do certain things, like, for example: I like to smoke when I drive, when I drink, when I write, when I lay out by the pool, before and after running, after sex, and generally any time when I am putting my mind to some sort of "use."  For years I said that I would quit when I had a baby, but no baby = no quitting.  And anyway, if I have no progeny, who really cares how long I live?  May as well tap out early in that case.

Part of the problem with smoking is that it is legal.  If you could get an 8 ball of coke at the 7-11, I would totally do coke every day of the week.  But, as it is, you can only get liquor and cigarettes and Slurpees at the 7-11, so I have a very real alcohol/cigarette/Slurpee problem.  I'm sure there are people who DO have access to coke as if it can be found in a 7-11, and to those people, I say, I'm sorry for bumming all that coke from you.  You must feel about me the way I feel about the people who are always bumming cigarettes from me and acting as if they don't know how to go about getting their own damn cigarettes.  With all the sin tax piled on, a pack of shitty cigarettes costs $10 in Chicago. That's why I buy the super long ones.

Rather than worry about quitting, I've recently decided to class up my smoking.  I'm going to start smoking expensive cigarettes -- no matter that I will no longer have money for food.  I'm also going to carry my cigarettes in a classy silver cigarette case engraved with the words "FUMARISTA LOCA" in cursive and use a comically long cigarette holder. 

Also, I will always wear a really fancy hat from now on when I smoke.

I feel the need to do this because I say, take pride!!  Drinkers are allowed to drink in style.  Why not smokers?  Smokers are the most pathetic, marginalized, hated group of citizens in America today.  Have you ever seen the outsides of buildings in Chicago in the dead of winter -- all smoking floors have been abolished, so they're out there in the freezing cold, with no mittens, having foregone their 15 minute lunch breaks to huddle in doorways while trying to eke out a few drags before taking a 10 minute elevator ride back to the 56th floor.

You used to be able to smoke in bars, but not anymore.  I am always trying to get away with things.  My friends are annoyed by this, but I will smoke just about anywhere until someone comes up to me and tells me to stop.  I will act like I am from Europe and had NO IDEA that I wasn't allowed to smoke in the ladies room at Wrigley Field.  I don't care if I get caught.  At that point, I've gotten when I needed.  If I have to put my cigarette out, so what?  I was actually told I couldn't smoke on an outdoor sidewalk while a truck was driving by spewing black smoke.  The server and I both actually coughed while we were having the exchange where she was telling me that I couldn't smoke in the street, and this truck is going by infecting my lungs and the rest of the sidewalk a thousand times more than I could do if I smoked one million cigarettes at this sidewalk part of the restaurant.

I know smoking is gross.  But you know what else is gross?  Gaucho pants.  THOSE should be illegal in bars.