A new study says deaths from cancer are down and attributes the decline to a decrease in smoking. Yay! That's a good thing. Smoking is dirty habit. I tried it when I was younger - who didn't? We looked cool, right? But I didn't much care for smelling like The Poodle Dog Lounge, and I kept having visions of cancer growing in my lungs. I'm imaginative like that. It didn't hurt that my aunt was a smoker, and when we came home from our house, everything in our suitcases reeked, and then when she tried to quit, my cousins told us stories of what a tyrant she was. I decided addiction wasn't for me. I did date a smoker once. I also decided that wasn't for me.
We were a great match in many ways, but the smoking was a giant pain in the ass. Aside from the pointless attempts to not leave his apartment smelling like an ashtray, there was him having to go outside constantly at my apartment to smoke, or us having to get to movies extra early so he could smoke before we went in, and having to pull over and let him smoke when we'd leave my parents' house (there's a no smoking rule in my car, and he didn't want to smoke at my parents' house).The worst was when we were traveling, and on a layover at the airport, we actually had to go past all the security so we could get outside so he could smoke, only to have to go back through all the security crap to get to back into the gate area. I lost a lot of patience with that little episode. And none of that is as bad as the taste when he kissed me. Think that sounds unkind? Take an ashtray, toss in a little rancid cooking oil and bad cheese (because smokers eat, and that mixes with the tobacco residue for a nice bacteria buffet), let it get all get nice and ripe, then lick it. How was it - sexy? I don't care how much you love someone, kissing someone with toxic waste breath is a tall order, and there's no mint strong enough to completely mask the nasty.
(That's a lie, by the way. Salem never refreshed anyone's taste. His wife just didn't know because her breath was foul, too.) But to my credit, I didn't nag. I was VERY supportive when he decided to quit, but I let him come to the realization on his own that he should. He wore the patch, and it was pretty helpful, though it still wasn't a completely painless process. I wonder if he ever relapsed?
1 comment:
Smoking = ew.
Scott was a chewer before we seriously dated. I told him he could chew or he could kiss me. I caught him once chewing after we started dating and that ALMOST was the end of what is now.
I, however, at the time was a social smoker...probably smoked the equivalent of two packs in my entire life. Okay, not true. I probably held the equivalent of two packs of cigarettes in my fingers and watched them burned. I was too chicken to puff most of the time (unless there was enough booze to let me drop my inhibitions, but then that is a whole other life of mine!).
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