My parents have always smoked. Or for at least as long as I can remember. I think that raising me must have been stressful. I remember there was a time when my parents would smoke several packets a day. It lead to the walls always being brown in our house and having a painter and decorator say to us that the only colour the walls could be decorated would be cream.
I remember my dad quitting for about a week before I discovered him smoking. He tried to throw the cigarette in the bin to hide it from me and the bin subsequently caught on fire. The father son dynamic of disappointment coming full circle when he didn’t know how to put out a bin fire.
The most amount of time my parents would go without smoking was usually when we travelled on holiday and the no smoking sign came on in the plane. Oh how my mum and dad must have rued the fact we didn’t holiday in the 70s. There was one time when my dad was pulled aside coming back from a holiday with more cigarettes than his allowance and the authorities didn’t believe that all the cigarettes were for him. They were.
It was my parents relationship with cigarettes that stopped me from smoking. During the time when all the cool kids were smoking I was eating ice cream and toffees like the fat little rebel that I am. Cigarettes definitely still have a feeling of coolness about them. Even now. Theres always people hanging out with the smokers just so they can hang out with musky smelling, rained on bastards just for the banter and company irregardless of the 2nd hand cancer.
I have smoked the occasional cigarette, usually casually. It’s definitely a go to for talking to a girl you like if she is outside having a cigarette. Chatting to a girl whilst she is outside, offering her your lighter is a staple of my youthful attempts to chat up a girl to the point where she would allow me to disappoint her sexually.