What? What?

You got something to say now, too?

Jesus, everybody just line up and take turns punching at the Cigster.

Is that what you want? WILL THAT MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY?

Jesus, I woke up in a friggin' looney bin.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

Answers

Look. We've reached a point where we're just not working out anymore, okay? I know, I know, I keep saying we don't need to see each other anymore, and then I come running right back to you every time I have a cup of coffee, or a drink, or I'm in the car, or after I eat, or... Look, it's hard enough for me to talk about without rehashing all this shit.

You're not good for me. You're making my throat sore, and my clothes and hair stink. I know you're bad for me, everybody's been telling me that...

Ah, hell. *flick...drag...exhale* I mean it, we've got to stop this. Just this last carton, and then we're through. Yeah, we can drag it out as long as possible, but it's going to come down to the inevitable eventually.

See...I've found somebody...and...he doesn't smoke. And you know, you're making life hard for me. Going on a date is awful for me, having to brush the stench out of my hair, brushing my teeth, mouthwash, and then going without you for hours and hours, jonesing like crazy. All that suffering because nobody wants to kiss an ashtray. I've thought about it, and I need kissing more than I need you.

And you know what?? I'm sorry if this hurts your little ego, but it's not even you I want. I'm just using you to get to Nicotine. Yeah, that's right. It's Nicotine I really want, you're just the means to get him.

You want to do what? Take it to Springer? I don't think so, you golddigging, fire hazard, environment destroying piece of garbage! Talk to the hand- no, talk to my arm.

I'm going on the patch, you jerk.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

Dear, dear cigarettes,

I told you when we I met you last April that it was just a temporary thing. I wanted to make another pointless drastic change, I'd already bleached my hair and gotten a couple tattoos, and it was either turn gay, become a serial killer, or you. I never figured anyone would go along with a pickup line like that, but you came right along, didn't you? So don't tell me who needs who.

We've had some good times, baby. We've had a good run. I've enjoyed sitting around watching my friend's big band play with you. I still enjoy the times when I work from home and I can spend the whole day with you, even when I'm working.

But I told you it was temporary, and it's almost over. I promised myself I'd stay single this year, so I didn't care who found me attractive, but that's all over on New Year's Day. 'Cause, let's face it: if I'm not with you, the people who like you may still find you attractive, but when I'm with you, it kind of limits my options, you know what I mean? We work together well, baby, but you know me well enough to know I won't let that get in the way of what I really want.

So, come on, let's not fight. Let's just enjoy the time we have left. You know I'll spend as much time with you as I can in these last days. *drag* It'll be hard, I know, but hopefully I'll find someone else. I know you will. -shane

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

To Whom It May Concern,

This letter is to inform you, Mr. Cigarettes (if that is, indeed, your real name) that you are to cease and desist immediately any fraternization you are currently imposing, or considering, with Pamie. Said Pamie is a valuable commodity to the undersigned petitioners and will not be given up without a fight.

Yes, yes, we are aware of the attraction you and the above mentioned Pamie have for each other. We are aware also of the sexy effect caused by your presence in the hands of certain people, i.e. Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Montgomery Clift and Barbara Stanwyck. We will stipulate to the sexiness but, as you are no doubt aware, this is not a black and white world, sir. You can not just go barging into the lungs of our loved ones pretending to bring benefit.

Our demands are simple and paramount to the health and wellness of Pamie and those around her: Stay the fuck away. We are watching your butt.

F.O.P., Inc. (Friends of Pamie, Incorporated)

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

Actually, since I never started smoking, I was never like Tony Randall, snatching cigarettes out of people's lips. If anything, anti- smoking Nazis annoy me much more than smokers. My mother smoked like a chimney, I grew up around it. In a restaurant, if they ask smoking or nonsmoking, we say, whatever gets us a table sooner.

Al of Nova Notes.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

Hey.

You never loved me. Yeah, you said you did, with those soft caresses and the way you pressed against my lips, but I know the truth now. You only wanted my body. I gave it all or you, don't you know that? I gave it all, and you just took and took and took. You never gave anything back. Of you may say you did, but that cough wasn't a gift, it was just a fancy way to rob me of my lungs. It was my lungs you wan't wasn't it? First my lungs, then my throat, my mouth, my tongue, my youth.

Well no more. I've had it. I've finally started listening to my friends, to those commercials. I saw the Insider, alright? I've had it, and we're through. And don't come crawling back to me because you're lonely, don't whisper to me of the night of all the meals and drinks we shared together.

That don't fly no more. It's over. It's time I took my life back. So why don't you go live in the gutter of something. I don't need you anymore.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

Bless you, Al. I swear to god, since I quit smoking the one thing that makes me really crazy is when some self-righteous non-smoker starts going on about what a filthy habit it is. Nothing makes me want to smoke quite so badly as the urge to dissociate myself from those obnoxious people.

Dear Cigarettes: So it's really over, we're not right for each other in the long term. I've moved on, and I know you've got plenty of others. You don't need me. But I'm glad we've stayed on friendly terms. I'll always remember you with affection. And every now and then, you know we'll get together and have a quickie. Just for old times' sake. You're still the best, baby.

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

Dear big billion dollar tobacco industry man: I have despised you since I was say, 4 or 5 years old. Because my grandparents smoked and they did a lot of babysitting for me and my younger brother.

I hated the way my hair and clothes smelled when I left their house. I did enjoy blowing out the matches, but I had no desire to take you out for a test drive myself. I thought their walls and curtains were actually yellow, not just stained that way.

When I was 14, a funny little thing happened. I stopped being able to breathe well. Asthma, the doctors said. Imagine that.

Now, when I smell cigarette smoke, my chest gets all tight and I have to fumble for an inhaler. Imagine being in an emergency room, gasping, feeling like someone has parked an elephant on your chest. I get headaches from the smoke, probably because of a lower amount of oxygen entering my body (or maybe it's all in my mind - hard to say). I can never stay in any sort of club for more than two hours without coughing and coughing. You've put a crimp in my social life, and given me a lifelong ailment. And you killed both of my grandparents.

I hope someday people will stop letting you screw up their lungs for good.

Please leave tobacco man if you can - I know it's really difficult.

Thanks,

Janelle

-- Anonymous, December 10, 1999

Dear Mr. Cig,

Hey, pal, how ya been? Haven't seen you in oh... nearly two years now. It'll be two years in February, won't it?

Miss you still, though. I walk past the ten o'clock people and I lean me head a bit to the left. I can see you hanging out with them, and I think, man, I wish I was there.

Known you since I was a baby, I have. First it was just my parents. You were over all the time. Every single day.

Then, suddenly, you went away. My parents threw you out. But I missed you. Missed you a lot.

I guess I was ten or so when we started hanging out all the time. And we've been good friend, for some seventeen years or so. We had our ups and downs. There were a few times when I didn't see you for a month, or a few weeks, and one time, nearly six months. But we always got back together.

This time? Nah, I don't think so. I've been gone for nearly two years now, and while I still miss you from time to time, and still think about you, I'm through with you.

So, since I can be through with you, why don't you leave Pamie alone, pal? Okay?

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

Yeah, Cig... it's been a long time... who needs a bad habit like you... a long time... Friday, October 31, 1980, about twenty minutes past five o'clock... yeah, I remember that last one...

We'd been together a long time... a quarter century... ignoring those stolen moments with cigarettes when I was a kid, when Larry Bigando would lift a pack of Lucky Strikes from his father's grocery store and the group of us -- Larry, Mike Amato, Louie Nacaratto, and me -- would head off into the woods to hide and smoke. But I didn't really become a smoker until 1955, when I was twelve, and began to buy them. 23 cents a pack in Bigando's Market. Marlboro... god, I can smell them and taste them... remember that dizzy feeling when you finally learn how to inhale... then in high school switching to Parliament because it seemed cooler and more sophisicated than other brands, that recessed tip (the only cigarette you can French kiss, we used to say)... then Junior year ditching filters for Chesterfield Kings, the length of a filter cigarette but you got more because it was all cigarette, no filter... Then in 1962, the summer I worked in a sweater warehouse and could only smoke in the cafeteria during lunch and during the morning and afternoon ten minute breaks... smoking a Chesterfield King, there was time left over, but ten minutes was too short to smoke two king size cigarettes, so I took regular sized Chesterfields to work, and then one day couldn't get them so I bought a pack of Camels.

Ah, Camels... unfiltered Camels... two or three packs (usually three) a day for the next eighteen years... 25 to 30 cents a pack when I began smoking them, $2.12 per carton at ShopRite Supermarket...

I tell people that I quit for health reasons: my wife said she'd kill me if I didn't stop.

I'm glad I don't smoke you any more. Food tastes better. I can appreciate fresh air. I save a lot of money... prices have certainly gone up! I've protected the health of my children. My house and car and clothes don't carry the stench of stale smoke. Despite those years of smoking (and the vast amounts of time in my younger days that I spent in the sun), my face doesn't have that cracked leather look that smoker's faces get when they are my age. I couldn't pass for forty, but most people don't think I look fifty-six. I can enjoy running and biking and hiking... I don't have time to train the way I would like to, but even without training I had the lung capacity to run in a five mile race on Thanksgiving morning and I would never have been able to do that if I hadn't quit smoking. And being free of the addiction means that I don't have to join the fools standing in the cold outside of smoke free buildings trying to feed my habit.

So I'm glad I quit. Glad, do you hear me? Glad!

Ah.... but sometimes I will catch just a faint whiff of smoke and my salivary glands will start pumping...

And nineteen years after I quit, I can still have that smoking dream... the one where I am smoking a cigarette and it tastes so good and I remember that I quit and I shouldn't be smoking it but one is okay, one wouldn't hurt me, and maybe I want to have another but I am so afraid because I can remember the painful struggle to quit... and sometimes I realize that I am dreaming and that makes me ecstatically happy because that means that I can smoke the whole friggin' pack and it doesn't matter becuase I am asleep so this isn't real so I can just light up and suck that smoke down deap and enjoy it without worrying...

----------------------------

I understand why I started smoking -- peer pressure, wanting to be cool, etc. -- and we were surrounded by cigarette advertising everywhere, radio, television, magazines, newspapers -- people smoked on television -- Edward R. Murrow smoked on camera, Rod Serling smoked on camera, Lucy and everyone on her show smoked on camera, athletes smoked -- cigarette advertising had slogans like "gentle on the T-zone" and "Not a cough in a carload" -- doctors appeared in ads touting the benefits of smoking for aiding in digestion and relaxation -- Clouds of smoke would roll out of the teacher's lounge. (When I was an undergraduate and in my early years of grad school we used to smoke in class!) But things have changed today. Most buildings are no smoking zones. Cigarette advertising is banned on tv and radio. Antismoking ads appear everywhere. Cigarette packs carry warning messages. The connection between tobacco and lung cancer and mouth cancer and throat cancer and heart attacks and aging skin and on and on, all scientifically proven known facts. So why do young people take up smoking? Especially females? I am seriously puzzled by this. Most of my college age nieces are smokers. Many of my high school senior daughter's friends have become smokers. Why?

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

I used to smoke a pipe in an effort to look more literary, but you know what, folks? Even READING doesn't make you look more literary. The only thing that makes you look more literary, the one thing on earth, is wearing a sandwich sign in the shape of a book.

Mark my words, children.

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/3709/mothersource.html

-- Anonymous, December 12, 1999

I love cigarettes. They've been with me for damn near half my life now. I just wish that everyone could love them like I do. Sure they say they're bad for you, but that's the same with any love of your life. Nobody quite understands them like you do. You've gotta take the good with the bad.
If I had tons of cash, I'd start an ad campaign to help people accept, and come to love cigarettes the way I do. One of the more bothersome things of teevee these days is the cavalcade of ads with purportedly cool kids who all don't smoke. What the hell kind of cool kid actually say, "Hey, I'm cool." The most irritating of these is the one where they've got a bunch of kids sitting around, with the spokeskid saying something like:

"Hey, these are all my friends, we're all cool kids, and we're all individual and different. But when it comes to smoking, we have no free will, we obey hive mind, and forgo cigarettes. Cigarettes are evil."

I love you cigarettes, and I hope that the bad men never take you away from me.

http://members.tripod.com/~riyati/die-ary/

-- Anonymous, December 12, 1999

We got together when I was old enough to know better, but we all know about Smart Women, Foolish Choices, right?

We've had our good times and bad, but it's really time to call it quits. You're getting on my nerves, you take up too much of my budget, and I'm getting to an age where you're starting to leave your mark.

The thing is, you took my body and my soul. I've leaned on you for years whenever things got rough, a flimsy crutch that kept me from being strong. But I'm done with that now. Well, soon.

When the calendar turns, you're out of my life for good. I hope. I think. God, see what a squirming, spineless mess you've turned me into? It's time to take some serious action. You wormed your way into my family, leaving only my sister unscathed. You've irritated my husband and my cat for years. It's going to be all over soon, buddy, so start packing your bags.

Meanwhile, though, there's still time for a few poignant final moments. Parting is such sweet sorrow...

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1999

Dear Cigarettes,

It will be 2 years since we have been together. 2 whole years on July 3rd, 2000. I still miss you, Baby. My pretty blue and white box of Parliments with my matching silver lighter. How I used to love having you early on a quiet weekend morning with a steaming hot cup of coffee while I browsed the internet. Or in a smokey bar on a hot summer night. Or whenever I was angry, sad, frustrated or just plain bitchy. You helped. You understood. You loved me. You never asked questions or taunted me. You never blamed PMS.

Because of you I made friends and talked to people I would have not otherwise spoken to. Because of you I got 3 breaks from my desk a day. How cool was it to stay up late with my boyfriend (now hubby) just talking and smoking and laughing and drinking a beer or coffee? It was soooo frickin cool, OK. How cool was it to sit on the back porch of our old apartment on a hot night, looking out over the neighborhood, listening to all the summer sounds, smoking? Sooooo frickin cool.

God, we were feeling so sexy, so utterly attractive, but it was all a lie. We started wheezing and coughing and getting red in the face and feeling like we were having a heart attack just climbing the subway stairs or after we got dressed too fast. Then I was staring 28 in the face and you just weren't fun anymore. I knew 30 was around the corner. I wanted children. I wanted a firm ass before I had children. I did not want to look 50 at 35. Suddenly, I hated the way you smelled and tasted. I could only really enjoy you after a meal. So I grabbed a patch and quit you for good. I feel like I accomplished the biggest, hardest task in the world. I mean, here my loving hubby still indulged in you and I, me, who I usually considered weak and frail when it came to willpower, had slayed my demons. Oh, how full of myself I became. My skin looks clear, my hair is shiny, I SMELL GOOD ALL THE TIME and I don't have to brush my teeth or wash my hands every ten seconds. Yet, I am still in awe of your powers of persuasion, I respect your power.

Now I try to think about how I can run 3 miles and how Billy Blanks (TM) would kick my ass but good if I went back since I would not be able to live through Tae Bo Live Series 3 if I even THOUGHT about you again. I think about running up those subway steps with glee now.

I'm sorry. Please know I will always love you in my own special way. But you were no good for me. I gave and gave and you take and take. I can't have it. I think we parted on good terms and I will think of you fondly from time to time but it's really just best if we don't see each other anymore. I would never be able to shake you again once I tasted your sweet, yet evil, goodness. Damn you.

With Love, Christine XOXOXOXO

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1999

Oh, Dear Sweet Cig.

I left you just a week ago.

But it wasn't the first time. I left you many times. I'd come crawling back, thinking I needed you again. Praying you'd treat me well, that we wouldn't let our relationship take away from the life I wanted to live. And now, thinking of you? It just hurts.

So here's what happened. I confided in Mr. Hypnosis about you and your tactics. Stop laughing. I am not going to turn into anything when you snap your fingers. I got over you. I learned you trigger a "fight or flight" response in me, whenever you touch my lips. It's the arsenic and cyanide, see. You and Mr. RJ Reynolds didn't want me to know that you could or would give me anything like that... But you do. You always will. And you'll throw in about 4,000 other chemicals on top of it. Not to mention what you do in the fields with the pesticide, the fertilizer. Don't tell me. I'd rather not know. And it's your business now, not mine. Please don't call. It's never going to work like it used to.

I don't want to hear it anymore, babe. And sure, we had fun for a while. But I won't come back to be fooled again. I'm going to start running again. I don't want to sit on the couch with you anymore. Okay?

Take care.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1999

Hi killer! Where'v you been? Wasn't that New Year's Eve party a ball! Kind of spoiled when I realized that lover boy had smoked the last one in my pack but this girl at the party was soooo nice! She gave me one of her own killers, now is that *nice* or what? Anyway, what a ball, gads, we came home at 4 a.m. on New Year's Day Y2K!

I almost fainted when I got up in the afternoon and realized you had sneaked out, you were nowhere to be seen. But you made me what I am all right, that is, lazy and without energy. No way was I going to bother getting dressed and going out to look for you. All your favourite hang outs are closed on New Year's Day anyway. Funny, I played on the Internet and forgot about you.

This scenario was repeated for three days, I was more amazed that it was so painless than anything else. On the fourth day, I was desperately looking for the ten-year old frog in my throat, I cleared it again and again, nothin' doin', it was smooth sailin'. Slightly disappointed, I went to the mirror and discovered to my amazement that my tongue was *not* naturally thick and white, but a cute pink... Imagine that! Three-four days only and look at me, jeeze, I couldn't even find the red in my eyes, which by the way did not look like fish eyes anymore...

Anyway, this went on, let's see, 31 days in January, and 24 days until that Friday night in February where I said to myself: "Self, you are having major major problems because of every one around you. This is too much, you show them, self! Don't let them bug you! You never promised anyone anything, did you? Come on, self, don't let them come out on top, show them that you're real independent!" Four days and one pack later, I worried just a bit to see March 1st approaching so fast. I'd signed up for some ridiculous challenge and promised not to smoke between March 1st and April 11. This time, it looked like I might have to make an effort, it wasn't gonna happen just naturally... so I got a second pack, to really live it up before it was too late. It was good, I guess, but not great. There was some shame attached to it, or maybe the right word would be "self-contempt" at my stupidity.

What are we now? Oh yes, March 12, I've kept my promise. It's been slightly more difficult than the first time, not much. I repeat my mentra "This is such a great gift you are giving yourself, self!" and I refuse to dwell on the deprivation aspect of it all. I read that people who dwell on the sacrifice they make will be weaned like any other person, but will go back to the killer more easily and quickly. Because they haven't convinced themselves that they were *joyous*, *free* and *happy* with this gift they gave themselves. They only succeeded in thinking what great martyrs or control freaks they were, to be able to resist so long. So they feel that they *deserve* the treat, in recognition for all their efforts... Poor things! I read all that great philosophy in a self-help book for smokers. My daughter always says "Do you really believe all that crap?" as she lights another killer...

So bye killer! Got along without you before I met you, gonna get along without you now.

I can't say that food tastes very different... I had long since lost any real appetite. Now I'm always hungry. And I feel so good! All this talk about how irritable and stressed out you are when you struggle to stop. My mother has been using this for years to go through her two packs a day, trying to measure up to my father's three. They are highly competitive. Unfortunately, no one knows it because hardly anyone visits them anymore and they haven't been well for over ten years now so they don't go out much. I wonder what it is that ails them. I have been watching for signs of stress or something in myself, and the funny thing is, I feel less stress than ever before. Even in a crisis, I actually feel stronger and calmer. I blew off steam for trivia at every occasion, on my own, at home, like talking out loud to the TV. That may have helped.

My problem with the killer is that I'm too proud to admit that it controls me so much that I can't have just one when I feel like it. Like I *want* to be right and so I try to prove that I am... But at this point in my life, I have a feeling that I no longer am too proud to admit this or other possible (I say *possible*) weaknesses. Even worse, I don't want to be right about this stupid idea anymore, who cares anyway, except me?

The beauty of all this is that although I never ever preached about it, the fact that I just plain stopped and said "I don't know what happened, I just sort of lost interest all of a sudden" -- that fact led my 80-year old folks to quit on Valentine's Day. Cute, no?

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2000

Hi there. It's been a while since we've spoken. You probably miss me. I miss you...but it's better this way. I needed to move on. It was easy to let so many things in my life sit still when you were around. It seems really dumb now, but you controlled so many aspects of my existence. Anyway, I was much cooler when you were around, but I want to live forever. And you and forever don't mix. Of course, mortal human and forever don't mix either, but that's another letter to an inanimate object.

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2000