I just realized that 5 years ago today I quit smoking (non-time zone adjusted). My whole family smokes. To this day my mom swears that she didn't know the dangers of smoking while pregnant despite the PSAs I've showed her pre-1980. Youtube, winning bets for assholes since 2006.
Yeah, my mom smokes more than she spits up the tar she smokes, which is saying something. She's also narcoleptic and has limited short term memory. Basically, the local firemen had more of a hand in my early life than my dad ever did. Speaking of my dad, he smoked Export A green, also known as "Why don't you just inhale battery acid, you freak". I have to admit that the guy barely smoked next to Chimney the Black Lunged Mother. You know how Koreans open up the windows when blasting heat or the AC for some alien reason us mere mortals can't comprehend? Well, my lovely parents believed opening the windows while smoking somehow made it worse. I suppose it did, if your ultimate goal was to consume as much nicotine as possible. Even in the car, opening the window would only blow it more in our kids' faces in the back. Sweethearts, don't you understand? Now shut up, I like this song.
My sisters are significantly older than me, well it's signifiant for the only boy in the family. They both got into enough trouble to keep my prepubescent self entertained enough. I learned enough from them to cry, fight and plead no contest to various things in my future. They both started smoking around the same time in their mid-teens, much to my tattle-telling 10 year old delight. Actually, to be honest, I never once told on either of them for anything in my attempt to finally be cool. That quest is still on today, with their eyes rolling at my Great Wall walk and mastering of 4 languages. But I digress (and wipe away the tears).
Finally, sometime around the age of 14 I took up the habit regularly. I have an unimpeachable memory-despite my best drug fueled attempts- but I honestly don't remember the moment when I decided to take up smoking. Sure, I remember my first puff when I was 5 (one of mom's sleep attacks with it falling in the spine of the book she was struggling to read to me). There had been several more since then, but when you live in a household like mine where putting ointment on the accidental ciggy burns you suffered that day before bed was like most kids say prayers, you just live with it so much it's hard to draw a line.
Actually, I'm lying. I remember being in the field in front of the newly built Catholic school up the street. I know there was snow on the ground, but where I'm from that could be anywhere from June to May. Two girls, we'll call them Chhhhh.....Sally and Marrrrrr.....Suzy. And my best friend Ferrrrr......Fergie Fergra Ferguson. Seriously. His parents were hippies. Anyway, we were doing what 14 year olds do, playing hopscotch and setting fire to small dwellings, and then the girls pulled out the pack of smokes. I guess I may have done various things that evening to show my manliness. Killing the squirrel for dinner probably went a step too far, but that's beyond the scope of this fable. I know I puffed away like the Marlboro Man that I had actually never seen. These were pre-internet days.
By the end of the year I was a puffing junkie. It wasn't even hard. Some of my friends had to hide or spray cologne going home. I just had to stop asking my mom for a light all the time. This is not to say that my dad would not have kicked my ass if he found out. Christ, covering your sneeze with the wrong type of tissue was cause for a movie of the week beating in our house. No, I hid it from him. Easy enough. Whenever he walked through the door I just set it in the ashtray and my mom would 'fall asleep'. Oh, she's done it again! I'll just put that out for her, sir. Hahahahahahaha....puff puff motheroflife puff.
After many enjoyable smoking years, I had an epuff-any (seriously, I love puns). In December 2004 I was living in my friends' house and I was off from work on Christmas break watching a movie in the middle of the night in the livingroom. I had a smoke in the garage, ran downstairs to grab my laundry then ran up two floors to my room. I nearly had a heart attack. For real. The crap coming out of my throat was made of fairy tales pre-kiss. I collapsed in bed feeling my heart beating faster than that time I stole....oh, that doesn't fit into this story.
That was 4 years and 2 days ago. I decided never to smoke again. The next day I got drunk with my landlord/friend and had a smoke (sue me, mother teresa). Then no more. Most people think it's a New Year's resolution. Not at all, just worked out that way due to the time off I had to recognize the yellow on my teeth.
That was the first time I tried quitting and it happened to last. I know people who don't get addicted to anything. I am not one of those people. Not at all. I am A-Dic-Ted. I hear a song I like, I listen to it 100 times in a row. Have I told you about my love affair with Jae-yook dok bap? I am an ADD toddler in a casino. Even today, 5 years later, I would break your grandmother's neck just to get a puff. But I'm past that.
Why, you holdin'?
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