An Essay on Smoking

Be as brutal as you like (he's not a friend). Any comments would be welcome.....

I’ve been smoking for about a decade now. It’s not a very good habit, arguably the worst in my parade of bad character traits. I’d argue that procrastination is worse, as my plans for quitting smoking are always placed in the nebulous realm of tomorrow. Without procrastination, perhaps I’d be forced to find a clever way of lying to myself that didn’t involve the indefinite future. Regardless, there’s little chance for me quitting in the near future as I have so darn little to live for as a nonsmoker.

Smoking, while it does have a myriad of downsides, does do one thing quite well: it makes you damned cool. The very act of apathy towards one’s health and looks is quite admirable; it’s a wholesale condemnation of the very act of existence. Nonsmokers can manage it by not buckling their seatbelts or binge drinking, but smokers can match this behavior and trump it. Smoke flowing from the mouth and nose in a nonchalant gesture of defiance, glowing embers falling lazily to the floor, the smoker leans back wreathed in the cancer causing agents emanating from his very body, barely aware of the toll they’re taking. You can’t get that aura from huffing gas, even if you can reap the harmful benefits.

I’d stolen the occasional cigarette from my father while in high school, furtively smoking in the alley behind our house terrified that someone would come out of one of the service entrance doors and identify me as a minor. Maybe even he’d tell my father. Once I figured out how to inhale, the buzz was incredibly intense. Me staggering around the alleyway, shoulder ramming into walls as I could barely walk from the buzz, dizzy, lightheaded, realizing what all the hype surrounding smoking was about. It was a merry-go-round without the group experience, and best of all, you never had to push. Sadly, the buzz would quickly fade forever and I’m unable to push a merry-go-round for more than 10 minutes straight anymore, let alone gather up enough kids to make it worth my time and not look like a weirdo.

I started smoking seriously when I was 18. The decision to begin smoking was rather simple for me. I was never cool in high school and I decided smoking would be the way to really break the dork ceiling and excel in my coolness. I had a lousy attitude; all I needed were the props. Plus I was too embarrassed to buy a porno mag at the store, and I needed to buy SOMETHING asserting my adulthood. Registering for Selective Service just didn’t have that soul satisfying “oomph” that I desired. So I bought a pack of Marlboro Reds. They were definitely the coolest cigs; I considered Kools briefly but decided their name was ironic.

The cool attitude from smoking did not help that summer in my hometown. Everyone had already created their own perceptions of me, and cool was certainly low on the list, right below “lady killer” and “sports hero”. I weathered a lot of flak for my lifestyle choice, bearing the brunt of lines such as, “I thought you were smarter than that.”

They missed the point entirely. Intelligence wasn’t in question here. Everyone KNEW I was smart, and if they didn’t I set out to prove it, peppering my conversations from quotes I’d memorized in Bartlett’s. I didn’t actually READ any of the material I quoted, but these yokels in Battle Creek rarely knew the difference. And the ones who did were never out at a coffee shop till 2 AM smoking and drinking coffee. They were busy improving themselves. The plan was flawless.

The real point was how cool the smoking made me. The first goal I set out in achieving with smoking was the smoke ring. I can still remember the awe I felt when I saw Eddie Van Halen blow one ring through the other. This was the fastest ticket to cool I could buy . . . smoke rings. In hindsight, it was probably Eddie’s wicked licks and musical talent that got him laid, but I wasn’t getting bogged down in details. Smoke rings, and plenty of ‘em. That was my technique to master for submission into cool school. In a few short months, I was burping out rings with the best of them. Even Eddie would have taken pause, offered me a swig of Jack, and invited me to the after hours party. I was good at this, and all it took was practice! As the summer prior to college drew to an end, I knew one thing was certain – I was going to be the coolest freshman at Michigan State University, living on an Honors Floor in a dorm dedicated to political science majors.

The saddest truth was borne out early in the fall when I discovered I was not the coolest kid in college, or even the coolest on my floor. This is an extremely tough pill to swallow. Sure, I was moving to an Honors floor at a Big Ten school, but that didn’t make me a geek. I was going to be cooler than these folks. Much cooler. Very few of them smoked!

I learned an important fact in the dorm’s smoking lounge. Smoking will not make you cooler if the remaining 18 hours you’re awake are spent inside the computer lab playing text-based video games. You just can’t recover from a geek factor of that magnitude by smoking. You need to shoot heroin for enough cool points to offset this menacing shadow of nerd.

Within 18 months of smoking, my major reason for starting had been blown out of the water by the remainder of my life’s actions. At this point it didn’t matter. I was hooked. Video games and smoking will be what ends my life. Hands hooked like claws from carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritic from the smoking, barely able to get my hand to my neck to suck down another drag through my tracheotomy, playing turn based video games I can use my eyelids to control, that’s how I want to go. Maybe I’ll have a major heart attack in the midst of a game of Starcraft 15.

Smoking has become a different beast since the early golden days. Rarely do I get a buzz, but it is an incredibly relaxing stimulant. I need things to do with my hands in social settings; it’s not an option. Smoking gives me that nice little social crutch. And hey, I can still blow smoke rings! They’re still cool, and I don’t let on about my crippling video game habit in public. I’ve regained coolness simply by hiding that dirty little secret.

Smoking is becoming another dirty little secret these days. I was the only smoker at the party I went to on New Year’s Eve. Some may think, “That’s great, a sign of a healthier America”. I hope they’re eaten alive by fire ants. The only correct response is, “What a lame party!”

Please. Not one smoker but me? Not one angst-ridden atheist contemplating the overbearing problems of sentience and the dislocation of our species as a whole? Not one nihilist fearful of the 1984 to be, offing himself while cigarettes are still unrationed? Not one guy who parties? Or better yet, one girl who parties? Nope. Every 45 minutes I was standing out there alone, without the warmth of fellow smokers’ camaraderie to sustain me. I questioned why I was smoking, and thought about the fact it was the New Year. A time for change. Do I need these things to control my life? Do I need to be cool? Perhaps it was time for a New Year’s Resolution to better health!

Who am I kidding? I’m going to be the coolest fucking guy in the cancer ward.