Warm anticipation has built slowly, steadily, as the long months have passed
At last, party night arrives
Diffidently, I sidle up to those who live daily on the dark side
Self control breaks
Shamelessly, I beg to bum
NO!
Not the sickly sweet menthol
Abject gratitude to my generous benefactor
Furtively, I hide in the crowd of outcasts
Migrating to the designated Den of Iniquity
Your cylindrical perfection in my clumsy hand
The Bic is flicked, warm light dancing in my eyes
Glowing, a deep inhalation
Eagerly, greedily, pulling
Cloudy lungs, cloudy head
Joyous motes dance before my eyes
My fingers and toes tingle
As I revel in the company of the damned
Damned myself, for a little while
The world spins, and I spin with it
I totter back to the disapproving world
Later, my clothes stink
I need a shower
Never again
Until next year
That was cool, but I have a question.
If I’m reading this right, you smoke one cigarette a year?
Is there a story here, or what?
Not much of a story, really. I break down mid-year at some happy hour and go through this same ritual. I have a general rule of 4 cigarrettes max for the year, but I was driving myself this year and could not fully indulge in alcohol and cigarrettes. Bumming cigarrettes at our annual holiday work party (we had it late this year) is a sort of tradition for me. It’s a multilayer guilty pleasure. It’s hypocritical, since I regularly fuss at my cardiac patients about the health risks of smoking, it’s another small rebellion that I indulge in at the work party, since I am conscientiously professional and appropriate at work, there is the simple pleasure of the tobacco head-rush, and the additional naughtiness of bumming cigarrettes and NEVER buying my own. And there’s the pleasure I afford my smoking friends as they get to laugh at prissy 'ol me.