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Reach Out and Cough On Someone

I had a dream ...

a dream that I started smoking again. I loved smoking, I really did. I started smoking on my 19th birthday. Oh, what a day. The day I turned 19 will forever go down in the books as the most debauchery-filled day of my life. It was the first time I smoked a cigarette, the first time I told someone I was gay, got drunk, smoked a joint, passed out, got a hangover, and the first time I did the deed with another boy�. Not at all in that order.

That was some party.

But most importantly, for purposes of this diary entry anyway, it was the day I started smoking. Smoking and me were an instant match from the very start. I loved the feel of it, the smell of it, the taste of it. I loved finishing that last hurried drag before going in for class with the other smokers. I loved taking long, contemplative drags when having an argument or a debate. The only thing better than smoking through my first cup of coffee in the morning was smoking with a glass of bourbon on the rocks before bedtime. Smoking wasn't even an option at our late night poker games. And there was nothing so relaxing as smoking after a big meal. Oh, and I especially loved smoking after, uh, doing the deed.

It was as if I had been searching my whole life for that one thing to make my existence complete, and I found it in a pack of Marlboro Lights. I used to keep mine in the freezer, so that first smoke out of the pack was cool and crisp as you took it into your lungs, and oh - the joy was unspeakable.

After a few months, I noticed that I�d begun tapping my pencil vigorously against the desk towards the end of class. Hmmm, that�s curious. I�d twist and cringe uncomfortably in my seat when riding in someone else�s car. Yeah, I wonder why? I began to wake up in the middle of the night from dreams about riding a cloud of smoke over campus and flicking lit cigarette butts at the sorority girls and fraternity boys down below. I�d finally managed to accomplish something in my life, an addiction. I was ecstatic! After all, isn�t an addiction just an excuse to do more of something you like doing anyway? Of course it is!

I smoked every hour on the hour for nearly 5 years. At the end of it, my teeth were green, my fingernails brown, my shirts putrid, and I couldn�t have been happier. My lungs, however, weren�t so happy. My coughs, once short and dignified, now sounded like the noise my 15 year old Jeep used to make when trying to turn over the engine on those extra frigid Colorado mornings when I was in high school. Sputtering and hacking. I worried that I�d become one of those old men that go to elementary schools and scare children away from smoking by speaking through the gaping cancerous hole in their throat. So, I quit. It�s been 16 months since my last cigarette and now I can jog and play tennis again, hell, I can climb a flight of stairs now without even wheezing one bit.

Big friggin� deal! I still dream about flicking lit butts at the beautiful people of the world, and I cry every time I see SP light up. My own mother has disowned me for making her the only smoker in the family again. I miss smoking. It�s like having an old friend out there that you never see but desperately want to. Why not just give him a call? Reach out and cough at him? Hello?

I think I�d be willing to be one of those old men haunting an elementary school in 50 years if I could smoke again. I don�t think I�d really mind seeing �em cowering in their seats and sneering at me through the tiny slits in their fingers as they cover their eyes in fear and revulsion. I get that reaction from people half the time anyway.

Still, something keeps me from reaching out to that good friend. I must be a glutton for punishment, because I sure as hell haven�t been taking advantage of this whole �ability to exercise again� nonsense.

To hell with it, I never liked children anyway.