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Friday, March 13, 2015

SMOKING USED TO BE COOL


SMOKING USED TO BE COOL


It has been four years since I quit smoking for the third and probably last time.  I am glad I have quit, even though I still have ten “quit smoking” pounds to lose.  My breathing is better; I lost that persistent cough that I claimed had nothing to do with smoking and food tastes better, much better, hence the extra ten pounds.
It has been easier to quit smoking this time around for several reasons. 
First, smoking just got way too expensive thanks to all those non-smoking fanatics that pushed up the smoker’s tax.  Those same fanatics made it impossible to smoke at work, in restaurants, the train, airplanes, even bars…all the really cool places, just because they didn’t enjoy the polluting results of my addiction. 
Second, there are just not that many smokers left.  At parties, all the really fun people could always be found outside in the cold feeding their addiction.  When I quit, I still went outside looking for the “fun” people.  Now it seems most of the fun people have also quit.  It is pitiful being outside in the cold all alone.
Most of all, smoking is just not cool anymore.  We used to do such neat things with smoking back when it was cool.
It took weeks of practice, but I learned to snap open my Zippo lighter with one hand, spin the igniting wheel with a finger snap, fire up a smoke, and snap that Zippo shut with a flick of the wrist...COOL!!
 If you didn’t have your Zippo, you learned to bend a paper match out of the book, close the cover and strike it all with one hand…COOL!
Then there was the actual smoking.  You had to learn to blow smoke rings, one inside another.  You blew smoke out really cool straight up in the air, out your nose, or the extra cool out the mouth into the nose French Curl…REALLY COOL!!
We put our butts out cool.  There was the casual no look shoe squish which required a slight toe twist.  If there was an ash tray you had to stub it out just right, and if you had plenty of room to properly clutter the environment, you just flicked it away without a care in the world…COOL!
You had to know how to hold your cigarette.   If you held it at the end of your fingertips you were a lady…or ladylike (if you get my drift).  A dude held it between his thumb and pointy-finger and used his second finger to flick off the ashes.  The other method was to hold the cigarette well down to the second knuckle of the first two fingers, with the thumb as the flicker...COOL!
We could be so suave and gentlemanly when we smoked.  Your best girl just loved it when you lit two at once and then handed one to her filter first…COOL!
 I don’t miss smoking anymore.  I don’t miss the craving when it was inappropriate, I don’t miss the coughing, the staining, the occasional burn marks on my shirts and the dirty looks from non-smokers.
I do miss being cool. 

22 comments:

  1. LOL; I didn't realize there were so many cool moves with smoking! That's probably why I never took it up; I don't think I'm graceful to have performed some of them! Good for you for finally quitting! Worked for a doctor once that told their patients the best give they could give themselves was stopping smoking.

    betty

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  2. Heh. I'm just old enough to remember the whole 'smoking is cool' vibe that was around when I was a kid. It's been pretty thoroughly eradicated by now, so folks more than 10 years or so younger than me can scarcely wrap their minds around it - "what could possibly be cool about smoking?" To which I can only smile and say, "Yeah, you're right - go with that thought." But a set of folks my kids' age have taken up the death-sticks again, this time with a more 'edgy, rebellious' vibe about it. (*sigh*)

    Just for fun, I could refer you to a smoking post of my own, from a couple years back. . .

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  3. Great post Joe, I'll have to have Momma Bear read it! That is if she can quit hacking long enough to hold her iPad steady...

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  4. My Grandma used to smoke Camels.

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  5. glad i skipped that whole mess. i'd rather be healthy than cool. :)

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  6. I smoked long ago too Cranky. I'm still cool though. You've got to find some other cool things to do. I'm just saying.

    It is good to be able to breath, not cough up a lung every day and the food does taste way better. Oh and we sure smell better now too.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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  7. Heh. I remember ALL of that. I quit smoking but I didn't quit being cool. (What's that? I was never cool? Oh, then never mind...)

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  8. Thankfully its reduced globally.
    The only one I tried was Cool cig and it had a menthol flavour. That was my first and last brand.

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  9. I tried smoking but I was not cool. It always looked like a bad Bette Davis impression. I would smoke a couple from a pack and then give the pack away to someone who was down and out. Glad now that it didn't stick.
    You, Cranky, are totally cool no matter what. And you make me laugh every day.

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  10. At least you had a period in your life when you were cool. I've NEVER been cool.

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  11. I still smoke. Although, I've noticed many premature wrinkles on my face due to smoking so many years. I've quit a couple times (while pregnant) but then picked it back up again. Lately, I've been seriously thinking of quitting for the last time! It's just so damn hard. But, I of course know all the "cool" things that came with smoking. I don't feel so cool anymore though.

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  12. The cool thing is that with most of us smoking, no one noticed how bad our clothes and hair smelled nor how awful our breath was. It's like when you hang out with only garlic eaters, no one notices the aroma.

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  13. From someone who never smoked, i never thought it looked cool, and i have a great deal of sympathy for how hard it can be to quit. It was that hard for me to give up sugar.

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  14. In retrospect I recall even the "cool" part as embarrassing. I meet or pass people now and know by the smell they smoke. I used to smell like that. I have a friend who still lights up and I drive home with a runny nose after a few hours in second hand smoke. I used to to that to people. How awful.

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  15. I quit in 1991, Joe, when I came back from Mexico and saw how expensive cigarettes were in the U.S. I don't know HOW people can afford to smoke now.

    But rest assured, Joe, you're cooler than ever.

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  16. At the tender age of 26, my peers pressured me into trying a cigarette. They were teachers, so they were quite persuasive. I must admit my effort was less than successful. They laughed so hard that I won a pile of pretzel rods from them in the weekly poker game.

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  17. I never was one of the cool people. I remember when I was in high school, they had a smoker's lounge for the students. All the cool kids hung out in there...you know, the ones who now look about 10 years older than I do.

    You are still cool to me - just look at your blog! That's cool. And Mrs. Cranky, she's cool. And you play the guitar...now if that isn't cool.

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  18. An interesting post, Joeh....what do you take of it? Did you have a question in mind, or opinion? Got a lot of responses to it, wonder what your take on it is.

    I smoke rather later in life, age 57 to 69. Odd why I started, quiting was easy....pending heart surgery.
    What do you make of the respone's here, very curious.
    Mike

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  19. That "French Curl" does not sound at all Cool, it sounds perfectly disgusting. I've never been a smoker, so didn't have to give it up, but I grew up with smokers, married smokers, worked with smokers, both sons smoke, and I'm the one with asthma because of all that smoke. Not the fresh smoke, which is bad enough, but the stale stink that permeates clothes, furnishings and comes from the mouths and lungs of long term heavy smokers. That is what causes me to cough until I vomit. So as far as I'm concerned the sooner that habit dies out, the happier I'll be.

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  20. I quit 35 years ago +/-. I don't miss being cool at all, not that I ever was all that cool. The thing I immediately enjoyed about NOT smoking was not having to drag around all the lighters, matches, a second pack for when you finished the half pack left over from the previous day, etc. I enjoy traveling light.

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  21. Very true. Smoking was very cool for a long time and suddenly quite recently not cool at all. We finally passed a tipping point where now only a minority smoke. That works for me. I'm a non smoker and maybe now I can finally be cool!

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