Today, 18 Nov. 2010 is Great American Smkeout Day. Back in 1981, I was still selling residential income property, apartment buildings, in Long Beach and on the morning of the smokeout, I was driving to the office. Some perky bastard was on the radio touting the smokeout. How if I didn't smoke today, that would be at least one more day that I would be adding to my life. I was thinking screw you, you asshole, if I wanted to hear a sermon, I'd go to church, as I was automatically shoving a Marlboro into my piehole.
I'd been ill for some time by then. I didn't know t right then but it turned out to be Cat Scratch Fever. As a doctor pointed out to me, it couldn't be CSF because I didn't have a festering scratch wound and I didn't have a fever either. Anyway, as I was groping for my lighter while driving down Second Street in the Shore, I thought to myself that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I thought gee, if I quit smoking I'd have to feel better. So I said to myself, that's it, I quit. And I did, quit. I also knew right there and then, that I was an ex-smoker, and I started to feel better immediately. I had quit smoking a thousand times, I used to kid that every night when I went to bed, that I had temperately quit smoking, at least for eight hours. Unless, maybe if I got up to pee.
I got to the office and predictably, when I got there, one of my co-workers, who had "quit" mooched a smoke off of me. We used to kid that Dave didn't quit smoking, he had quit buying.
I tossed him my pack of cigarettes and told him to keep the pack for I had quit. Naturally, he didn't have a light either, so when he bummed my lighter, I told him to keep it also. For I really know that I was an ex-smoker. It was really weird, because I did actually know that I had quit.
So enjoy the day and remember, if you don't smoke today, that would be at least one more day that you would be adding to your life.
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