You Can't Fire Me 'Cause I Quit

We all know that puffing on a cigarette makes anybody look astoundingly cool. Put in a historical context, smoking is a part of Americana. Soldiers in World War II movies sometimes expelled all their ammo, but as good fortune would have it, they never ran out of Lucky Strikes. During the heyday of crooners, cancer sticks meant as much to the legacy of the Rat Pack as their mistrust of the Japanese, and millions used to fantasize about rollin' in the linen and doin' some sinnin' with puffers like Humphrey Bogart, Betty Grable, and countless other stars who mysteriously died before they turned 60. Did you know John “Duke” Wayne smoked upwards of SIX PACKS a day? Clint Eastwood might have had a fistful of steel, but that's nothing compared to John Wayne and his iron lungs. In my smoking prime, I could not compete with the Duke, and now, it saddens me deeply to think that I never will.

Astoundingly cool as it is, I had to quit. Now, it's usually not my style, but I crunched some numbers to justify my decision. The occasional scoop on the news and the overall word on the street hinted that those ads from the '50s that boasted the vitamin content of cigarettes were slightly fabricated... Maybe even dishonest.

 

(I mean, this tubby sack of shit isn't even real, so who do you trust?)

Folks, those revelations upset me. On the all-important scale of Vitamin Goodness, what I once presumed to be a seven out of 10 was only like a FOUR out of 10?! You gotta be shittin' me. I began to wonder if it was really worth it to pay $8.48 to breathe in tar, rat poison, and a surprising lack of vitamins.

On a more personal note, I was always bothered by the saying, “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.” It made me worry. I wondered, what are the chances a woman is going to be turned on by licking an ashtray? 25, 30% tops? Taking those keenly guessed stats into account, I decided that pursuing women who don't get kinky with ashtrays was probably a wiser bet than the alternative in my ongoing search for a soulmate.

Most importantly, I burned through roughly one pack every three days. Compared to others, that is both paltry and humiliating. For me to match the carcinogenic greatness of John “Duke” Wayne, I'd need to be cloned a staggering seventeen times. If I'm going to be a measly fraction of the smoker the Duke was, to hell with it, I must be in the wrong racket, playing a game in which I could not prevail. If John Wayne was the Michael Jordan of inhaling grits, I was a fledgling bum on the bench who needed to retire.

A week into my bout with quitting, a friend spotted me at our favorite bar. Incidentally, she happened to be a friend who had survived brain cancer.

“What's new?'' she said.

“Well, one new thing is that I'm trying to quit smoking.”

“Dude,” she said pointedly. Her eyes bulged and jumped like almonds tossed in the air. “Sorry to tell you this, but I thought that was even harder than chemo.”

We had a good laugh about that.

“Any advice?” I said. “What did you do when it got really tough?”

“I prayed.”

For a moment, I contemplated.

“I have other methods,” I said.

That turned out to be true, but one such method was re-burning stubs in order to get a minimal fix of nicotine. Early on, that minimal fix was what it took for me to resist buying a pack. Life's funny: One reason I decided to quit was this newfangled desire to become cleaner and more hygienic. And by smoking once a day knowing it was the most desperate, disgusting way to do it, by digging into my car's ashtray for mini-periscopes to torch again, I think I'm finally on my way to getting cleaner and more hygienic.

Aside from praying or chuffing re-burns, there are countless ways to cope when quitting gets really tough. And as long as you keep your goal in mind and try as hard as you can, there's no reason for shame or judgment. During the more aggressive phase of my nicotine withdrawal, I did some things I'm not especially proud of, and there were times when my anger and neurosis got the best of me, but I'm sure a lot of ex-smokers can relate.

For instance, I didn't know about the “Kool-Aid Man Fails.” You can ask any RJ Reynolds revolter about these incidents. Kool-Aid Man Fails occur when your entire being is overtaken by a craving so powerful and evil that you gnash your teeth and boldly crash into the nearest wall. No one knows what goes through our heads when we launch into Kool-Aid Man Fails; maybe we fleetingly believe there are cigarettes on the other side of the wall, and to crash through the wall represents the most direct path. In my experience, I didn't exactly break through that wall like a certain jolly, indestructible logo has done to earn the love of America, nor did I even leave a dent beneath my hat-rack, but I'm proud to say I didn't break a single bone in my face. All I got was a “severe” concussion, but I'll be fine. The thing I want to reiterate is this: Tropical Punch, Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple and cigarettes, plus a visit to the neurologist on Tuesday, and Great Blueberry! Remember, you'll be able to quit if you believe in yourself, Purplesaurus Rex.

Anyway, you know what else caught me off-guard? The Grand Theft Auto flashbacks. Those were insane! I had no idea that, because I was enduring a lack of nicotine that was becoming a real shock to my system, I'd get a little case of the cuckoos and convince myself I was a hooligan rampaging in a GTA game, that I had to get out there on the streets and run amok, maybe throw some Molotov cocktails at hookers. Thankfully, my hallucination had a happy ending, as my throw was far off the mark, the bottle I used was actually just half-filled with harmless Faygo, the women in question were not hookers but rather upstanding members of our community, and they chased me down and beat me up.

If you're gonna say no to something as funky as Parliament Lights, moods swings and fits of mischief are to be expected. It's not uncommon to surprise loved ones by toting a large, red sack and promising them a present, reaching inward and fishing around, only to pull out a hand flipping them a towering middle finger. I've been there, so don't sweat it.

Feelings of spite are par for the quitting course, so I know I'm not the only one who broke into a Kinko's after dark, used their machines to counterfeit some Grateful Dead tickets, and scammed a couple hippies out of 80 bucks.

Perhaps the biggest appeal of the withdrawal phase is all the swearing. Seldom choir boys and girls to begin with, a smoker in the act of quitting can out-cuss the Wu-Tang Clan and your racist uncle put in the same room together. Heck, I even coined a few obscenities as I seethed with toxic fury. Staring at a coworker's pack of Camels and muttering “Cocktobitch,” as well as shouting “Shitosaurus!” as I drove past another smokes-laden gas station were true feats of creative Tourette's.

“Fucktocrotch!”

That's what came out of my mouth on day nine when I scoured through the ashtray and found no more worthy re-burns. I sat up and throttled the steering wheel, blue eyes flaring in the sun. The closest gas station was a mere two blocks away. 

As I let go of the wheel, I was yearning for something bad and I had exhausted all my methods. There was nothing else to do. 

And so I prayed.