Back when I drank with more regularity than I do now (or have for some time) and when I used to smoke, nothing met me with more enjoyment and dread than the morning smoke. Both, you ask? Yes, both. Because after you wake up with a hangover, the last thing you want to do is put more toxins in your body… but as a smoker, well, you really want to put more toxins in your body.
I was reminded of this today. Vicky and I were both dying in bed and Suki was dying on the floor, because she desperately had to go outside. I normally take her out around 8am but it was approaching 9:30. So, she was whining, scratching, doing anything to get our attention. Finally, I got up – because Vicky was feeling as bad as me and hers was not self-inflicted. How bad was I? Bad enough to remind me that getting that drunk is just plain stupid. It felt good in a “will someone please kill me” kind of way.
Downstairs, Suki and I went, and then outside. Walking actually helped me a little bit and I was starting to enjoy the morning – in so much as you can enjoy a morning while dragging your stomach five yards behind you – when around the corner came a smoker. This guy was making enormously puffy clouds behind him, smoking with the fervor of, say, a smoker who hadn’t had one all night because he was asleep. And I walked right into a cloud.
To say that I immediately wanted to through up would be an understatement.
To say that I was intensely jealous would be confusing to you non-smokers.
But the thing is, I was also relieved that the cigarette (and smoker attached) was gone and I could return to inhaling fresh air again… or what passes for it in southern California.
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