The Allure of Smoking

I blame it on Oppenheimer. Atomic bomb aside, the man made me pick up my first cigarette in ages. I’ve talked at length about how seeing other people smoke has made me want to light up. I quit over six years ago when I realized that morning cough was something that would stay with me until I was gone. I quit cold turkey and never looked back. It took a year to not notice the sweet scent of cigarettes when I walked past someone that was smoking.

Walking to IMAX I was offered a cigarette. Three seconds and I had it lit and in my mouth while I was walking. It was glorious. For someone that likes to be a loner, having fire hanging from my hand was definitely an easy way to keep people at arm’s length. After the film, I had another. Then after dinner. Then later that night I bought a pack.

After watching a man deal with the aftermath of creating a weapon that can literally destroy the world, I was staring at the night sky with plumes of smoke making geometric shapes around the moon. I didn’t even cough with the first hit back. It went down smoothly, and it continues to.

Before quitting, I had managed to downgrade to Capri’s. Think of the long, thin cigarettes that a 1930’s silent actress would smoke. It might not seem like much, but you’re talking to someone that used to chain-smoke through Camel Cool’s. I knew purchasing a pack was wrong, but I also made a conscience decision that it was simply dipping my toe back into a pool that I would not swim in. I went with Parliaments. That added lip before the filter gives me the false sense of security that I’m not completely smoking, but merely partaking in a habit that I can stop at any moment.

By Friday my friend’s outdoor candle had turned into a makeshift ashtray and the chair I was seated in looked like it had been snowing only around the parameter of my seat. I started that morning with a smoke, and it continued throughout the day. By the time my friend Shannon arrived, I had texted her to stop by the store to pick up an additional pack before coming over.

She showed up with a pack for me and Pall Mall’s for herself. She had quit as well, and I asked her why the additional pack. She said that with me smoking it was inevitable that she would as well. Other friends at the party were shocked to see ex-smokers sitting there puffing away like we just got off a flight from Newark and weren’t California natives. Leaving the party, Shannon gave a great speech about how it was just for the party and there was no way we would smoke in my car - that was crossing the line.

A block away from the party, we had both lit up a cigarette and she drove while I looked for the proper playlist on Spotify. You would have thought it was the early 2000’s, back when we didn’t know cigarettes could kill you.

I hadn’t seen my best friend in two years. Time has a way of slipping by when you live in different parts of the state and the conversation, like the cigarettes, flowed throughout the entire night until we said goodbye to each other while the sun came up. By five in the morning, both packs of cigarettes were gone, and my car smelled like a bar.

For the first time in two years, I have really enjoyed my patio. I sit out there at night with my headset on and play music while smoking the last cigarette yet again. I’ve been back to work for over a week, but next week is when everyone arrives back from vacation, and I’d like this habit to be gone before I walk into an office meeting smelling like an ashtray. I don’t think the problem has gotten that bad, my hair still smells like hair products, but again, don’t trust a smoker’s sense of smell.

Hurricane Hillary is coming through town. I look forward to watching the rainstorm from my patio while I smoke through hopefully my last pack over the weekend. When that last Parliament is lit, I’m going to play Dorothy Moore’s “Misty Blue”. It was the song that I played when I quit smoking in college. It was also the song that I played when I quit smoking six years ago. It’s the song that I will play this weekend and hopefully, not one I will play in the future for the same purposes.