Benedict Arnold

I've already finished a pack of cigarettes today and the sun hasn't quite gone down. I wasn't kidding when I said I wasn't going cold turkey. (I know you can't see me, but trust me, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, I don't look like an idiot. On the other hand, you could say smoking a pack of cigarettes in less than a full day is pretty idiotic.)

Donna brought me home a fresh case of white death when she came home, as she typically does, since I typically ask her to do so. It's beautiful really, this little box with its shrink plastic wrap that glistens in the dull light from the two working bulbs above my head. You smokers know what I mean, the rest of you can go to hell. If things go as planned, I'll be counted among your pink-lunged sanctimonious number before long.

AC/DC's Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution roughs its way from the speakers and I realize that although I'm not a singer, if I go through with this poorly planned attempt at cigarette denial, I will never have the smoky, crusty, rock 'n' roll pipes that only years upon years of self-destructive smoking can provide.

Geez, I'm rambling already. I'll be cracking another pack as soon as I've had dinner and I can feel the ball of smoke sitting in my belly, making me queasy. And what am I thinking? I can have one before dinner's served, that's what. I'm hooked like middle management on the promise of a cost-effectiveness scheme. I'm obsessed, like Quebecers are about being pseudo-European or Torontonians are about being cosmopolitan.

God in heaven, I love to smoke.

And yet, in some twisted masochistic turn, I have dared to challenge the claw-like grasp of Big Tobacco, the same giant taloned hand in which I have unabashedly wallowed for so long, lost in my own unrestrained celebration of the fragility of life, the universe and everything.

How can I even consider turning my back on my little friends, the white-robed bearers of the holy leaf?

I am a worthless, filthy traitor.