The Controversial Cigarette

I had my first real puff of a cigarette when I was about 13 with Sarah Taylor, down the back of a primary school before a rehearsal for a play we were in. When I say ‘first real puff’, I’m omitting the two weeks of hustling poor little Hayley O’Conner at school in the year below us for the cigarettes she used to steal from her Mum to sell to the older girls. Because it wasn’t until I had my first real puff that I realised I had been bum puffing those hustled ciggys for the whole two weeks behind the bush in intermediate with my little shit crew. We got caught and put on level two detention for two weeks, which I now think of as hilarious because I wasn’t even smoking was I? I was inhaling and pushing the smoke out before it even hit the back of my throat. All those after school DT’s durasealing library books just for the rush of being a badass, not even smoking. I knew it was a ‘real’ puff with Sarah Taylor because I had to suppress the cough that was tearing through my chest, and I nearly passed out walking back to rehearsal – the head rush got me good.

I haven’t always been a smoker. After the stint in form 2, I ‘quit’ (if you could even call it that). Throughout the remaining school years, I’d scab a few drags from some of the girls if I could, after school by Britomart (one smoke between 6), but besides that, I was never one of the hardcore smokers who got their older siblings to buy them a pack of B&H. And I definitely don’t think I was addicted to smoking throughout school. It wasn’t until I went flatting when I was 18 that I picked up the dirty habit to a full-time extent and became addicted. Maybe it was the fact that I could even buy cigarettes at all that made me take it up. Maybe it was the fact that Teu and I had some of the best chats on the back deck, tea and ciggy in hand. Maybe it was a sweet pick up line – for mates, not guys. It seems to bring people together I think. Or maybe it was because I was bored. Either way, I was spending $10.80 a week on Dunhill blues to whip out when I had a spare moment or two. I stopped for a while, partly because I became too poor to buy my own pack, and partly because I moved into a place with a non-smoker and didn’t have a buddy to jam with. But I never strayed completely from the lazy ciggy here and there. I only took it back up over the past year.

My parents hate it. I still don’t have the balls to smoke in front of them and I’m nearly twenty-two for goodness’ sake! They know I do, but I think they’d prefer to pretend I don’t. My Mum often asks me casually if I’ve started smoking again, and I tell her I only have one or two if I’m going out. Funny that she accepts that answer when I was going out Wednesday through Saturday without fail in Auckland, and she was the one washing my smoke drenched clothes. My Dad is absolutely sickened by it. His parents were both smokers and died from lung failure. I think the 21^st speech he gave me was aimed at anti-smoking. I think. Anyone who was there is probably just as unclear as me, because he was pissed off his nut and thought it would be a good idea to give the speech in gibberish for all the gibberish folk in the house.

One of my best friends hates it. She thinks it’s a sickly, gay past time and doesn’t know why I do it. I’ve never seen her even touch a cigarette and we lived together for nearly four years. She never aggressively encouraged me to give up. She merely took the piss out of me when I was sitting out in the cold and rain, breathing in all that toxic air while she sat inside enjoying Big Bang Theory. We’d joke about the possibility of me catching a cold on top of my emphysema. Most of my other friends are smokers, or at least socially smoke, so I hardly hear anything about giving up from them, unless we’re hungover – “Bro, smoked so much last night and bought another pack while we were out. Worst headache ever and now broke. We should probably give up.”

My boyfriend* hates it. We broke up once and when we got back together, he asked me to quit. I said yes. I lasted less than a day. I’m going to say I lied.

Smoking is such a controversial habit, and I genuinely don’t know why. Sure, it’s kind of not good for the environment, but so is driving your Nissan Pulsar to uni everyday. Sure, it’s unhealthy, but so is all the coke you drink. Sure, it’s ‘unattractive’, but I’m not trying to impress you. If you’re worried about the second hand smoke, piss off and leave me to die alone in peace, I’m not asking you to inhale my sloppy seconds with me. There are so many more reasons why smoking is controversial, and I can see why it is, but please don’t judge me because I like a late night cigarette with my tea.

It’s not our future.

*Boyfriend: my significant other who I’m not really sure knows whether I still call him my boyfriend. Lol.