Copyright 1998 - Stewart Hymans from alt.support.stop-smoking

I promised a report, so here it is, ounce by ounce:

Got up, put on favorite shirt:

"Join the Marines See the World Make friends Kill them"

So far, so good.

Lit the stove, put some coffee in the pot (used to grind it, now just chew it), and an eggshell. Butterbuns German Shepherd, female, farts) nowhere to be found. Funny, I'd never kick the dog. The cow, yes. It was after coffee that it started to hit me, and I remembered the patch. Couldn't find them, at first, and by the time I ripped open the package, and tried to light one, I was sorta shakin and bakin.

Tried three of the little suckers, and couldn't get a one goin'. So, I tried to light one on the stove. Knocked over the coffee, and scared the shit out of the cat... Jasper, after Jasper Johns, the artist. Sign on the cat box: "JASPER'S JOHN." BB can't read it, so she sniffs.

I took all six boxes into the living room, tore up the packaging material for kindling, put the whole mess in the middle of the living room floor, and STILL couldn't get the goddam things goin', cause my hands were shakin' so bad I couldn't hold on to a match.

I'm resourceful. I went out to the barn, kicked the cow, and dragged the goddam oxyacetylene rig in (2,300 degrees, F., and it lights with a striker!). Like a fool (appropriate to the day, huh? yes Rob, we're all just a big cosmic joke on you, so sit on my torch!) I once made the mistake of gittin the big bottles (four feet high, if you're not familiar with them, instead of two feet high) and they weigh about two hunnert pounds, and I've got 'em on a cart built for the small ones, so gettin em up the back stairs was a bitch, and, twice, I fell in the mud (it snowed yesterday, but it all melted) so I hadda get some boards, and build a ramp, and the 'phone kept ringin', and I was SURE it was ROSIE bein full of good cheer, or some such crap, so I shot the 'phone, and IT'S goin on my "giving back list," like the lawnmower (but that's another story).

Anyway, I got up the god damn stairs, and into the kitchen, and you guessed it, ran over the fuckin cat box, which was soaking wet from the coffee pot I'd dumped, and I threw SOMETHING, I still don't know what, but it was about as heavy as a cast iron skillet, (and if it was my jug of Glen Grant, I'm gonna ask the Lord to track down 'ol Tho*, who started all this, and roust him untill he feels like his head is stuck up an ELEPHANT'S ASS) at the cat, who I've never been able to hit with anything, and this time was no exception, except I hit my head (on what turned out to be the hairy side) on the handle of the cart, and my scalp is bleedin like a stuck pig, and at that point the cow had no idea how few minutes she had left on this planet.

Anyway, I got the damn thing into the living room, trailing mud, blood, and coffee soaked cat shit, and torched the whole god damn pile!

That did it, and I got about 2,000 milligrams right up the ol' sniffer, and passed out on the smouldering carpet for what seemed like hours... and mighty fine hours they were... but must have been only a few seconds, 'cause my clothes didn't catch on fire (I love that T-shirt!), and it only singed my hair and beard on one side.

And I'm NOT gonna try and shave the other side to match, at least not today, 'cause I'd probable wind up with the hedge clippers in my shakin' hands, and cut off my head, which isn't the way I had envisaged quitting this annoying habit.

So, I went out to kick the cow a few more times.

Unfortunately, on my first try, she musta remembered the last boot in the but, 'cause she swayed to the right, kick went to the left, and that boot went flying off, and hit the overhead light, and the place went dark, and I went down backwards on, you guessed it, a steamin' pile of cow **i*, and there I was, in the barn, in the dark, in my favorite T-shirt, with half a beard, and 1/4 of a head of hair, thanks to fire and male pattern baldness genes, and stinkin' like s*i*, and along comes Butterbuns cruisin' out of some hole, and starts into lickin' my face (the bald side)!

Well, I think she just thought that I'd discovered one of her favorite pastimes (rolling on her back in anything that smells rank) but I sure was glad to see her, which is an exaggeration, 'cause it was pitch black. I guess I mean I was glad for the company, and we both sure did stink like the dogs we were.

I'm not too concerned about the living room carpet, 'cause I didn't have it long enough to get used to it, but I'm sure gonna miss that cow.

Anyway, Just "droppin in," my neighbor came by (every time she hears a gunshot she thinks I've finally done it, and she can get that lower forty, or else she just wants to kick dirt on the remains), and SHE'S another story, but I'll save that for now, and she said "what's up, dumb fuck," which is her idea of poetic humor, and I gave her $500 to go down to Wal-Mart and fill up on more of them patches. Then I dragged in a piece of roofing tin, and found a dry piece of sheet rock, and put 'em over the burned spot, and checked the gauges on the torch, and just generally got ready for another snootful.

Then I got down on my knees, and said: "Lord, I don't ask much, and try to be a pretty good guy...sorry about the cow... but I sure would appreciate it if you could take pity on an addict, and make those patches just a little more flammable."

Well, Sue came back, and the Lord works in mysterious ways, 'cause it turned out she found some you can just glue on a bare spot, and get high. Who woulda' thought? If youda told me that before, I woulda said yah, and coke and aspirin can get you pregnant, or some such.

Well, obviously that fire turned out to be a blessing (praise the Lord!) 'cause all that new bare skin makes it easier to stick them patches on than shavin my arms, and I've got seventeen patches on now! I look like Gravel Gerty after a bad night in a quarry... but I ain't smokin', an' I don't scare the dog, an' we'll both be eatin' beef till the snow flies.

So, that's how my day started, and Rob, I'll tell ya right now that I ain't letting T*om, or Lucien, or Lori, or Heather, or AnnR, or JP Phil, or Kalah (who I'm planning on asking to have my child), or Mel and Jay, especially Mel and Jay, get one ounce of quit ahead of me if I have to kill every cow in Santa Fe County.

So, to all of 'em, especially *hom, and Cynthia and AnnR and DanaS, ... and all the folks at Phillip Morris... I don't smoke cigarettes, but I will say that this quit is kinda difficult, as things go. Rob, how's your day?

Stewart

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