One Last Cigarette

            I have detailed how I ended up a slave to cigarettes.  That slavery being self induced left my brain shackled by the poison in each smoky breath I would swallow.  I can still taste the sensation it would give me as I write these words.  I can even smell the stale nicotine that used to be imbedded like a tattoo on my finger tips.  Now let me explain to you what the smoke filled haze of a day in the life of me was before I chose to quit.

            I would wake up at 6:00 am, and have a cigarette before I got out of bed.  I had a waterbed so I was never concerned with a potential fire (Ha Ha).  I would then sit on the pot (toilet for those who prefer proper English) while smoking my second.  I had my third in my mouth as I poured my first cup of coffee.  Smoking my fourth helped me get the coffee down.  My fifth cigarette coincided with my second cup of coffee.   As predicted my sixth helped me finish it.  I again felt the desire to sit on the pot while smoking my seventh delicious cancer stick.  So I have been out of bed for 49 minutes if you gauge time by the number of smokes I had completed.  Eventually I would brush my teeth shave and shower and get dressed.  Impressive, a whole 21 minutes without any smoke entering my lungs; however we are not regulating the smoke that was still leaving my lungs.  So I had been awake for 70 minutes and smoked seven cigarettes.  If you use the previously calculated 7 minutes per cigarette, I had the opportunity to breathe fresh air for 21 minutes.  On the flip side, being awake for 70 minutes and only having 7 cigarettes was not good.  A cigarette on the average takes 7 minutes to smoke, so if you look at it from that point of view, I should have had 10 cigarettes and not 7.  I was falling behind so of course, I had to catch up.  Finally, it was time to leave the house and drive the 28 miles to the office.  I had another smoke while going to get in the truck.  Next, I had the 45 minute drive to work ahead of me so I then would realize I had at least a chance to smoke 6 or even 7 more before getting to the office...Having been up for 119 minutes and had smoked 14 cigarettes, I therefore had nicotine in my lungs 98 minutes and clean air for 21 so I had fallen behind by 3 cigarettes.  You see as the panic set in of being in the office and I would not be able to smoke for at least an hour, maybe two, I began to smoke faster than normal and literally eliminated any oxygen buffer I had created from my shower.

               Once I had arrived at the office, I would spend the next half hour or so settling in; trying to set what pattern would be established for the boss getting his morning coffee.  I had to plan any opportunity to get outside so I can get a smoke.  I would even voluntarily kiss his ass by running errands or going out and getting doughnuts.  To have the advantage of having a smoke guaranteed at lunch, I would also volunteer to go and get it for everyone.  The next smoke I had to plan was after lunch.  You know what I’m talking about, the smoke after a meal.  When you don’t have a smoke, often it doesn’t matter what the meal is, to the smoker, any smoke is going to taste like Crème Brule.

            After getting lunch and getting my smoke in, I would then struggle through the rest of the day, sometimes getting irritable because I wanted that smoke.