Smoking

I think I should start smoking. Not one of those “forty a day for the rest of my life, hacking up my lungs whilst making sandwiches for my kids in the morning” kind of smokers. I’m talking about the kind that does it in cafes, like continental French men. Or the Italians. I’d say the Germans but I only ever imagine either Nazi prison guards, men in drag or Eva Braun; pre blowing her brains out obviously.

I mean what would Freud say about it all? Would he say that my association with smoking is a sexual one? That I see it as a symbolic representation of a penis? Would he say it represents my father? Well he smokes. So did my mother. She quit about five years ago, though she still says she’s a smoker; she just hasn’t had one for a very long time. I think it’s good of her to do that. I mean, it’s not like she wouldn’t pick one up, drag and then remain unhooked; she admits it.
She “gave up” at the same time as beginning that “life changing” diet. She would throw cigarettes and fatty foods out in one foul swoop; she didn’t count on my brother having a near-fatal accident in the middle of the woods at 9pm in the evening. Seeing him with all those tubes in and out of him, she’d have to get rid of one of her commitments; all that stress. The way she spoke about it after, you’d think she’d nearly been paralysed and had metal rods thrust into her bones.

I see most of the smokers on-line; on those chat sites where you get randomly paired up with some paedo-pervert with a desire to see my non-existent breasts or pray that I’m into seeing them jerking off, fat wobbling and all. They always seem so suave, the smokers I mean.  Like they’re dealing with some enormous banking crisis or they’ve just seen a man kill themselves; it’s quite amazing!

I’d never really like the whole “cancer stick” feeling though. I love how we have vile images thrust into our consciousness every time we go to buy a packet. “Pack of ten please; I’ll have some cancer to go. Discoloured teeth? Yeah, why not?” Is that really the price of smoking? According to the treasury, 8.1 billion pounds was collected on taxes levied against cigarette packs in 2007. That’s an awful lot of money they’d lose if they didn’t light up every day. I’d be contributing to the economy in my own small way.

Another thing I think about is the sexy image of people smoking after sex. Somebody I live with doesn’t smoke but she does have sex. I wonder if she waits for me to go sleep and then start. It’s pretty early right now and I haven’t heard a peep from her and her boyfriend. Maybe they’re having a day off; hurrah! I can sleep without the image of her panting and moaning into her pillow like a pneumatic drill pummelled into Kiri Te Kanawa hitting a top E-flat. I hope she uses a condom, for that matter. I always imagine one of my teachers at secondary school, their head looming out of my beloved’s face shouting, as if from a Dickens’s novel (no pun intended)  “USE A CONDOM!” Enough to make you flaccid I think.

I don’t think I’m going to start smoking. Too much effort and not enough of the bad boy image I think I’d like to gain from it. I think I’ll stay healthy. All I have to worry about now is the global warming, nuclear holocaust, fascist political parties, cancerous lumps, STI’s, chavs with knives, gun crime, being hit by a bus, freak acts of nature and terrorists; that’s more than enough for a 14 year old boy.