Tobacco and me

Sgt. Mom over at SSDB tells us why she doesn't smoke.

I had a very similar experience. Some neighbor kids and I grabbed some of whatever would burn down by our favorite illicit place to play - down by the river at a place where the riverbank was higher than we were. I had some ordinary paper, some nondescript dry weeds and a lump of coal and rolled them up into an approximation of a cigarette. I'd heard of charcoal filters, after all - surely the coal would take some of the edge off, right?

Ye gads! - one toke was all it took. Imagine getting shotgunned by a locomotive tailpipe and you have an idea of what I felt like. I never was tempted to smoke from that point onward.

Nobody who was around me much chewed tobacco, so I wasn't in any danger of picking up that habit. But one buddy was around it, and his father decided to give him some aversion therapy. The old man made him take a big lump of the stuff and then locking him in the car on a hot day with nowhere to spit. He swallowed some, and he wasn't even through barfing yet before he decided never again.

It's been awhile since I've been around anyone who chews indoors, and I don't miss it one bit. My favorites were the ones who used to spit into any trash can they saw. Once you threw something out, you definitely didn't want it back.

Someone I know had a boss who chewed, and one day he managed to spill his cup across her computer keyboard. IMO this is about enough to gag a buzzard off a gut wagon from 50 paces. But it was the only keyboard they had, so they cleaned it up the best that they could and she used it as much as possible. It didn't last long after that, though, and neither did she.

I've heard Acidman and others talk about how they put on weight when they quit smoking. So what would happen if a non-smoker started wearing nicotine patches? Or started drinking nicotinis?

One last thing - you might check out "Thank You For Smoking", by Christopher Buckley. He's a riot.