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A friend going through a difficult patch requested a funny story. Not being a joke-teller, I wrote up a tale from my childhood, and thought I'd share it here, and figured I oughta make this a regular feature. So, without further ado, here's the story of how I quit smoking:
In the summer between my fifth and sixth grades, one of my best friends stole a case (as in dozens of cartons) of cigarettes from the country club where he worked. Being generous - at least with ill-begotten goods - he supplied me with as many cigarettes as I could smoke. We rode our bicycles all around the town of Ortonville and our two-stroke dirt-bikes across the western Minnesota countryside for several weeks, cigs dangling rakishly from between our lips, chain-smoking everywhere we went to the tune of about five packs per day. Each. We thought we looked pretty damned good.
After participating as hard as I could in this attempt to be cool, I developed a cough. Amazing, I know. It got pretty bad, to the point that my mom took me to see the doctor. Turns out it was bronchitis. This was in the days when parents accompanied children into the examination room (do they still do that?), so when the doctor - a gray-haired, gruff mountain of a man - asked me, "Chris, do you smoke?" there was only one answer: "No, sir." Mind you, my mom wouldn't know any better, because she turned at least a pack a day into piles of ash, so I figured my fib would be successful. Unfortunately, Dr. Gruff turned to my mom - whom, I should mention, was also a big, scary woman, nearly six feet tall and prone to emotional outburst - and asked, "Linda, do you smoke in front of your children?" Being smarter than I, she knew the stink would put the lie to her denial, so she admitted to it.
What followed was Dr. Gruff berating my mother for what felt like hours, enumerating the ills of smoking in front of developing children, not to mention her own health, etc. She immediately quit smoking, then resumed but only smoked outside.
I had gotten my mom in trouble! That was it: I never smoked again.
In the summer between my fifth and sixth grades, one of my best friends stole a case (as in dozens of cartons) of cigarettes from the country club where he worked. Being generous - at least with ill-begotten goods - he supplied me with as many cigarettes as I could smoke. We rode our bicycles all around the town of Ortonville and our two-stroke dirt-bikes across the western Minnesota countryside for several weeks, cigs dangling rakishly from between our lips, chain-smoking everywhere we went to the tune of about five packs per day. Each. We thought we looked pretty damned good.
After participating as hard as I could in this attempt to be cool, I developed a cough. Amazing, I know. It got pretty bad, to the point that my mom took me to see the doctor. Turns out it was bronchitis. This was in the days when parents accompanied children into the examination room (do they still do that?), so when the doctor - a gray-haired, gruff mountain of a man - asked me, "Chris, do you smoke?" there was only one answer: "No, sir." Mind you, my mom wouldn't know any better, because she turned at least a pack a day into piles of ash, so I figured my fib would be successful. Unfortunately, Dr. Gruff turned to my mom - whom, I should mention, was also a big, scary woman, nearly six feet tall and prone to emotional outburst - and asked, "Linda, do you smoke in front of your children?" Being smarter than I, she knew the stink would put the lie to her denial, so she admitted to it.
What followed was Dr. Gruff berating my mother for what felt like hours, enumerating the ills of smoking in front of developing children, not to mention her own health, etc. She immediately quit smoking, then resumed but only smoked outside.
I had gotten my mom in trouble! That was it: I never smoked again.
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Yes.
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I kept waiting for the doctors and nurses to gather in my room to accuse me of faking.
It turned out that the occasional real headache I got came from being hypoglycemic. I was never so relieved in my life to find out I had something.
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BAD boy! Are you over feeling guilty yet? :-)
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Because both my mom's parents smoked about four packs a day APIECE
I have taken exactly one drag off a cigarette in my not-so-misspent young adulthood. At the time I had been smoking something else occasionally as a recreation. We were at a Conquest, at the con suite or something and Pat Taylor spotted something she needed to attend to. She handed me her can of Pepsi (with enough alcohol in it to drop me) and her cigarette so she was ready for anything. I reflexively took a drag off the cig and thought i was going to throw up. she turned around as the situation worked out by itself just as I as turning green and gagging. "You took a hit off my smoke!" she said, then totally cracked up.
I didn't barf but I came damn close.
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Re: Because both my mom's parents smoked about four packs a day APIECE
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Thanks for sharing this!! It's amazing where we get our inspirations.
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