Nasty

I've always thought that smoking is a filthy, disgusting habit. From as far back as I can remember, as a little kid I've felt this way. Here's the ironic part. Every adult in my family smoked. They all continued to smoke after my grandfather died of lung cancer (also a lifelong smoker) and again after my Aunt had part of a lung removed from cancer (surprise! another lifelong smoker.)

I've never been a smoker, but somehow, I've never escaped it. The majority of my friends were smokers, every women I've ever dated, as near as I can recall have been smokers. Both women that I was married to were smokers.

I wondered about this, and this is what I came up with.

Back in the day, it was 'cool' to smoke. I remember the very first time I flew in a jet, there were actually ashtrays in the armrests. Sure, smoking had been banned from commercial flights by then, but it struck me that the flights I caught (I travelled a lot for work) used to have people sitting there, cooped up, with no open windows to suck that nasty stench out of the air. I imagined it must have stunk like an old ashtray in those flights by the end of the trip.

As an elementary school student, I remember seeing teachers come and go from the 'Teachers lounge' and seeing them sitting in there smoking.

Somewhere between then and now, smoking stopped being cool, but it didn't matter, the addicts were still addicted. They had already created their consumers, and I'm sure they did studies that had to have confirmed that most smokers were too weak-willed to ever quit.

To this day, it amazes me that my Aunts and Uncles, and my Mother and Father continued to smoke after my Grandfather died from smoking.

You know, without a shadow of a doubt that you will ALWAYS have customers for your poison, as long as you can make your poison addictive.

But here's where it gets tricky.

I've always considered myself extremely stubborn, but not particularly strong-willed about most things. What I mean is, I just always figured that if I picked up any habits, I wouldn't be strong enough to kick the habit. But I always felt that if something happened close enough to me as a result of a habit, I'd wake up and do the right thing.

I'd like to think so at least. As a kid, I remember my mom and an aunt swearing up and down that 'if cigarettes every went up to $2.00 a pack, they'd quit.' and I laughed hysterically hearing them. It's a moment I'll never forget because of how absurd it was 'they could cost $10 a pack, and both of you would keep right on smoking!' I told them both.

Neither of them quit smoking, and neither of them are living anymore.

Underneath it all, maybe it was that little kid that squeezed his nose shut when all of the adults around him were smoking, had the perfect reaction to it. I always assumed if I ever started, I'd end up like everyone else, hooked forever.

My life has been one complicated situation after the other. The thought of voluntarily introducing something like smoking, on top of all of the chaos just always seemed like self-destructive nonsense to me.

The more the world changes, the more it stays the same.