I was driving the other day and realized that every third car had a smoker in it. So I was wondering how many of our mofo's smoke cigarettes? If so, when did you start and why.
I used to, but quit.
I started smoking when I was about a Sophomre in high school in the late 1950s for the dumbest of possible reasons--I was going with this girl who smoked but was afraid her mom (who also smoked) would find her cigarettes in her purse, so she wanted me to start smoking so I'd carry cigarettes and she wouldn't have to! I never even thought of smoking until that moment!
Oh, well, it wasn't the first or last time I did something stupid for some skirt. The habit lasted much longer than she did--tried quiting several times without success. Finally sometime in the mid 1960s when I was smoking 3 packs of unfiltered Camels a day, I came down with a hell of a summer cold, my head and chest all clogged up and coughing, my throat feeling like someone had sandpapered it. I would light a cigarette, take a puff or two and the smoke would go down my throat like barbed wire, and I'd put the cigarette out. A few minutes later, I'd be lighting another one.
At the same time, I was making about $350 a month and paying $50 of that in child support (oddly enough to the same girl who got me smoking). Thought to myself, "This is really, really stupid!" And I stopped at that moment. Was too sick to enjoy cigarettes and felt like hell with that cold, anyhow. By the time it cleared up, I was over the worse of the withdrawal, and I never picked up a cigarette again. That was probably 40 years ago or more.
Funny thing, when I was in the Army, I also smoked marijuanna and hashish--both drugs, and both eaiser to give up than cigarettes. Smoked my last joint the night before I shipped home for my discharge and never looked back. Then 20+ years later, I'm running with another woman and were over at the house of a couple with whom she was friends, and they had some pot they were going to smoke. So they light up a joint, I take a draw and coughed for about 30 minutes straight, like some kinda beginner. Walked away from that again forever.
Thing is, smoking left me with some really bad sinuses. Now I walk by a smoking fireplace or grill, and my sinuses start shutting down. Can't stand the smell of cigarettes or smokers anymore. We ex-smokers are like ex-whores, hell on the things we used to do, so my three kids all stayed away from cigarettes and drugs. And from the motorcycles that almost killed me. None of them ever joined the Army, either.