Smoke hands are choking babies, toddlers are walking through the ghosts of the elderly, Target Market is targeting their market, and fetuses with cigarettes in their undeveloped mouths take long and satisfying drags. Apparently the television does not want me to smoke. My parents tell me that I smell like a carburetor, that I will die, gasping for air, sucking like a White House intern on the tube of my respirator. Even the Marlboro man says I shouldn’t do it. So why not quit, right? Why not be the person that my parents, my T.V., the reformed rebel cowboy gum-chewer, and the Surgeon General want me to be? Why not take that four dollars and sixteen cents a day I would normally spend on “20 Class A Cigarettes” and spend it on something noble, like the whales or something? Well, all of this, in part, is what made me say “yes” to Health Services when they asked me to quit for a day and write about it. I only had two questions. Number one: Can I swear in the article? Number two: Can I start smoking again directly after I finish the article? The answers were both yes, so I said, “Cigarettes, fuckin’ bring it on!” The following is a slimmed-down version of my smokeless day in journal form.
9:36 a.m.
Dear Journa. I have been awake for nearly three minutes without a cigarette. I have spent one of those minutes urinating and the other two contemplating suicide. Perhaps I should have attempted this on a day when I didn’t have a full pack sitting on my dresser. I can see the Camel’s smug expression from here. He is looking at me with a seductive stare that seems to say, “Partake of my sensual pleasures.” I walk up to the pack and share with it a long and passionate kiss with just the right amount of tongue. Then, powerfully, I walk away. Not on my watch, Humpy.
10:35 a.m.
Dear Journal. The camel has continued to taunt me for the last hour or so. His disciples in money form are spying on me from my own trashcans, plotting, mobilizing and lusting for my blood. They sense my weakness. They are everywhere. I can hear them coming for me. One of them is commanding the others. I think he is their leader. I feel his hot breath on my neck. I fear that I may not live to finish this article if I do not escape now. He tells me that I kiss like a fish.
11:10 a.m.
Dear Journal. I managed to escape my apartment without succumbing to the robust and lusty throng of Camels. But this is a reality much worse. I walk down Grand Avenue and everyone seems to be smoking; employees, students, small children, even the squirrels are burying cigarettes frantically for the winter. As I turn the corner to Macalester Street, an old man in a trench coat offers to give me a cigarette in return for a roll in the hay. Debilitated from my walk down smoker’s row I comply, only to find out when my task is finished that he lied about the cigarette. How could I be so desperate and foolish?
11:30 a.m.
Dear Journal. I only have a half hour until class time. At that point, I will not be allowed to smoke. This should make my project easier. Unfortunately, my longing for just one drag has thrown me into a delirium, and as I write this I am rolling around naked by the pendulum in Olin Rice screaming out for the Lord to deliver me from this earthly hell. Fortunately this is Macalester and everyone thinks it is a conceptual art piece. I am arising now to a myriad of applauding hands. “Give me a cigarette,” I scream, but everyone thinks it is a part of the show. Nobody gives me one. “I mean it you fuckers,” I yell at the top of lungs, but I only receive more approbation and a grant from an impressed alumnus.
12:55 p.m.
Dear Journal. I was never in Vietnam, but I can’t imagine it was any worse than this. My professor is talking about modes of alienation and the postmodernist dilemma. There is nothing postmodern about my dilemma. I have one tangible, easily definable, want. I want a cigarette. I’ll take a half of one. I’ll smoke the goddamn filter! Screw you Derrida! You know nothing! Humanity is about oral stimulation, nothing more.
1:45 p.m.
Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. The words are scrawled in blood on the cover of my college-ruled notebook. I pause to look around. People seem to think this behavior is weird. They don’t understand me, though. They can smoke whenever they want. Anything I do right now that isn’t smoking is OK in my book. I don’t stop for them. I continue to write the two words in my own blood, faster now. The spastic red smears cover my entire notebook as a testament to my determination. I am asked, politely, to leave the library.
5:00 p.m.
After two lengthy seizures and a temporary conversion to Satanism, I have made it to dinner time without a cigarette. I sit down at a booth by myself in the small diner and ask for a menu. It arrives and I make my way slowly to the entrées, “The Unfiltered Cigarette Burger, Ultralight Cassarole, Menthol Chicken Wings, Turkish Gold Sea Bass.” My palms begin to sweat. “What kind of restaurant is this?” I shout. Then I look around. All the waiters and hostesses are enormous cigarettes with human faces and lighters for arms. They all begin to cackle at me, and finally chase me screaming from the restaurant. Needless to say, I don’t leave a tip.
6:32 p.m.
I am sitting in my bathtub wearing my pants on my head and repeating the word cigarette over and over again in a very articulate sing-song fashion. Suddenly, there is a loud pounding noise on the door of the bathroom. I emerge from the tub, and bend down to peer through the keyhole. I gasp. It is the army of Camels returned to finish me off, and they are joined by the giant cigarettes from the restaurant and the man I earlier gave my male virginity to. The door begins to budge and slant toward the interior of the room. I scream for my life but the neighbors are used to my screaming by now, so they do not respond. The door flies open and the activated smoking unit pins me to the floor and forces me to smoke 10 cigarettes at a time. I enjoy it at first, but then it poisons me and I lose consciousness. My last words before I slip into nothingness are these, “Target Market was right. Big tobacco is bad.”
The Confession:
I feel I should admit at this time that the previous story was all lies. Well, everything except the naked Olin Rice part (but don’t tell that to my parole officer). I made it all up because I never really quit. That is how weak and pathetic I am. I couldn’t even quit for a day. I realized I wouldn’t be able to do it when I woke up on the last possible day to quit before the article was due and promptly smoked two cigarettes in a row. Some of the journal was based on a dream I had when I was on vacation with my family and couldn’t smoke, but 90 percent of it was a self-indulgent charade. However, I feel that this fact is not without merit. If you are a light smoker now, quit while you can. You have seen the face of evil, and it is me. If you are thinking about starting, think about something else. Finally, if you are hooked like a passive trout, make sure to try quitting when you feel that you can do it right. Because half an ass never brought man anywhere. Just ask my uncle Robin, he was in the war. Well -Cough, Hack- back to my precious freedom. If you see my will power around, tell him to come back home. He is in trouble.
The National Smoke Out is on Thursday, Nov. 15 this year, and Winton Health Services encourages you to join smokers nationwide in quitting for a day.
