Smoke.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Smoking�s been my pet issue since I was a round little asthmatic bookworm, gasping for air and dashing from the room whenever the old man lit up. Eventually the guilt got him, and he quit cold turkey.

For years I�ve lectured JB, and when that inevitably fails to make him quit on the spot, I�ve always played the oh-don�t-mind-my-gasping-and-coughing card.

Twenty-seven years of spewing anti-smoking propaganda at anyone who will listen. What does it take to get me to light up?

A sign.

When we walked into the mother ship last night, a brand new pack of cigs was lying on the bar stool next to me. Unclaimed. Abandoned. They spoke to me, told me that age was a state of complacency in the mind, of habit and disinterest in new things. It seemed vital to me to make an immediate acknowledgment that I would not go gentle into that good night. Within half an hour, we had �em open, and I was puffing away. Though by that time, I�d downed several tall V&Ts and a shot of something pink and frothy, so if there was any buzz, it was completely lost on me.

(My eighth grade math teacher was sitting about five feet away, in prime position for viewing the celebratory spectacle.)

I overslept and appeared at work two hours late. There was evidence I showered last night. Or at least spent some time in the shower. And oh my god, the smoking. Do you think I could�ve developed lung cancer overnight? I feel like I�m still smoking. I can�t get that taste out of my head, and it�s making me queasy. If only I could get the doctors to induce a coma till things are running properly and the flavor�s out of my body, I might be able to go on.

Cigarettes are whack. I relegate them to the land of scotch. Let�s never speak of this again.