I have been in a bad mood for 72 hours now. It's the smoking thing. It's kind of like those 1950s warning films about marijuana, you know the ones, where the young college-aged kids go bonkers after one puff. They become all wild-eyed and violent, their hair sort of stands up and circles immediately appear under their eyes after that first good toke. Well, that's what's happened to me. Only it's the result of NOT taking that puff, NOT taking that first good toke.
When I first started on this venture, this "noble" (non-smoking propaganda in the great spirit of Josef Goebbels) struggle to quit smoking, I told myself I'd quit like The Greatest Generation (fucking idiot Tom Brokaw and his stupid fucking titles and his dumb fucking speech impediment) and just do it cold turkey, not even mention it, just stop, simply move on with my life without cigarettes, suffer quietly, keep my mild discomfort to myself. Well, that lasted about a half hour. I mention The Greatest Generation because the older folks that I knew growing up, Brokaw's fabled generation of people too dumb to complain and therefor somehow considered quietly determined ('They won the war, the big one, double-u double-u 2! Now hand me that sharp stick to poke in my own eye.'), always say things like, "Well, I just stopped." Or, "One day I just said 'that's enough!'"
Morons.
As you can see, 72 hours into my nicotine-fee journey, I'm a bit unforgiving. My wife is also quitting. I'm not sure how wise this is, the two of us quitting at the same time. For one thing, everything she says irritates me. "Honey, are you getting hungry? Want some lunch?" "Do NOT ask me when I want lunch! If it's alright with you, I'll LET YOU KNOW when lunch enters my mind! Is this so hard to grasp?!"
Yes. So you see, I'm not myself these days. And my wife, experiencing the same ugly withdrawal symptoms, is not herself either. Last night we had an argument over cake. I don't even remember what it was about, frankly. I just know cake was somehow at the bottom of it.
Of course, everyone I talk to, people who've done it before me, say, 'It gets easier. Don't worry, Clif, every day it gets a little easier.' They're lying bastards. It doesn't. It's not. They are lying, smug, evil, masochistic little turds, these ex-smoking superior shit-for-brains. It's like a little secret club ('Hey, guess what I just told Clif? I told him it gets easier...told him to hang in there...yeah, yeah, hehehehehe, I know...yeah, he bought it. He thinks it will...hehehehe') that ex-smokers have to join. Well, I'm saying it publicly right now, right here...I will NEVER tell someone it gets easier...it does not. It never will. Stopping smoking is the single hardest, ugliest, most unrewarding thing you will ever attempt, and frankly, it may not be worth it in the long run. THAT'S what I'll say to people.
I'll go on to say, 'Look at all the really smart and cool people who smoked - Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, FDR, Churchill, Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, Mae West, Crazy Horse. You know who HATED smoking? The one guy who couldn't tolerate it? Hitler. That's who. Hitler was one of those big, fat, intolerant, oh-dear-second-hand-smoke-near-my-little-fat-gruesome-slobbering-kids housewives that always complain when someone lights up near them. The shameless, chubby, hopelessly ugly hussies who actually ask people who live NEXT DOOR to them to stop smoking for fear their shockingly ugly and retarded kids might breath a whiff of it. (I saw this last night on the news) Anyway...HITLER was the first whining non-smoker in history. Hitler...that's the non-smokers big advocate. The non-smoking poster child. Hitler. Einstein smoked. Hitler did not. Coincidence? John Lennon smoked. Jim Jones did not.' That's what I'll say.
So as I enter day three (actually day four since I ran out of tobacco a day early and in effect stopped smoking the night BEFORE I said I would) I'm not pleased with all the lies, the deceptions, the misinformation, the false truths that have been shoveled, like so much manure, onto my non-smoking lap. Negative attitude, you say? Oh, yes. Yes, you go right on saying that. Non-smokers, I'm finding, are a lot like The Tea Party Movement. They're unyeilding. They don't want 'dialogue' with smokers, they want to destroy them, wipe them out, extinguish them. The smokers are to non-smokers what Socialists are to the Tea Party; a threat to civilization itself.
Again, day three of this horror has put me in a mood to over-exaggerate. I'm sorry. I can't help it. I had hoped the constant reminder of the money I was saving would help my mood. It does not. At this point in the process every penny spent on cigarettes seems like a great investment. In fact, it seems a small, almost laughable, pittance to pay for the peace of mind it insures.
But I remain resolved. I type this blog smokeless. I grit my teeth and continue to suffer. I continue to hate everyone and everything around me. I live in a state of complete hopelessness. You see, I always saw smoking as a privilege, a reward, an extra bonus for simply being human. And if I find out some day that the whole 'smoking is bad for you' campaign is some made up political thing, I'm taking people out. I mean it. I'm taking some people out.
Eighty one hours.
See you tomorrow.
