Day Seventeen

Do I don’t I, will I won’t I. Did I quit? No. Did I wean? No. Did I ponder the evils of smoking? Yes, in between cigarettes.

Let’s examine the glamour associated with smoking. Try to imagine watching a Humphrey Bogart or Betty Davis movie without the cigarettes. What about Clint Eastwood with his cigarillos and the lovely chew/spit tobacco scenes that always signaled his imminent victory in a showdown. Wouldn’t be the same. My all-time favorite smoking scene was the one in which the male lead lit up two cigarettes at once and handed one to the leading lady. How gallant!  (How come I can’t meet a man like that?)

More glamour? I saw a model in her early 20s on TV recently. She announced that she had early onset emphysema due to her years of smoking and that she quit the habit the day she was diagnosed. Her announcement jolted me into reality; that is, I no longer felt indestructible, immune. I began to think about all those people I had seen walking around my neighborhood with oxygen tanks in tow. I remembered the film I’d seen while in high school wherein a man spoke through a voice box via a hole in his throat.  (And I thought I wasn’t paying attention!)

Glamorous? You decide. I’m still on the fence, smoking cigarettes and knowing that it won’t kill me.