Today is my 8 year anniversary of stopping the old smokingdales that I loved sooooo much! 8 years and a day ago, I would easily be 5 deep by now! but 8 years ago today.....well, that was a different matter! (For the film version of my life, I see this bit narrated by Daniel Kitson, when he says 'That was a different matter then the camera will go all blurry before refocusing in a black VW Golf with me and Wiggy in the front with Kitty in the back (Ideally me played by Toby Jones, Wiggy played by 50 Cent, Kirsten Dunst for Kitty).
I remember saying to Wiggy and Kitty as they drove me to Boots (Sixfields, back in the days when having a boots in sixfields was still a big deal!) to grab a pack of those tampon applicator things (Vape was a thing of science fiction back then! Thank fuck! If I ever had to have a conversation about the best place to get a wide variety of vape flavors then, ironically, it would instantly start me smoking again! Also, the word vape sounds like a needlessly specific sex crime!)
I remember saying to the both of them, as they looked at me in disbelief (This look of disbelief could have been due to the fact that I smoked a lot, so they found it difficult to believe that I was actually going to quit. But it could quite as easily been because this was the first time they had ever seen me without a cloud of delicious nicotine heavy smoke obscuring my natural good looks and stunning eyes....you would have to ask them for clarification!) 'I am serious, this is it for me! In fact, I am so certain that I am not going to smoke again that I will make you this outlandish promise....
‘I Adam 'Mo' House, do solemnly swear that I won't smoke a cigarette again until we as a country decide to leave the EU, a reality star runs the USA, and Leicester win the premier league' There! That should do it, I thought, I have now put so many ridiculous provisos that I would definitely never smoke again!
So it was with mixed emotions last year that I realised that I could actually smoke again without breaking my declaration....but I didn't want to.... I will admit, in hindsight, that I didn't realize just how powerful my declaration of not smoking could be, it appears that I have some sort of super power...so today I am going to test this out!
'I Adam 'Mo' House, do solemnly swear that I will not smoke again until Corbin becomes PM, Ru Paul becomes the president of USA, women not paying tax on luxury items such as tampons and sanitary towels (Cotton ponies and fanny nappy's if you prefer!), people of mixed race aren't instantly referred to as black (This sentence brought to you on behalf of white liberal guilt!) and West Ham win the champions league' That should do it!
(I have just thought, the look of disbelief may also have been due to the fact that I made them stand in the car park next to Boots whilst making a loud and arrogant public declaration whilst they just wanted to get back to HB2 to watch some McFly and eat some Pasta ‘n’ sauce!)
For those of you thinking of quitting, let me give you the low down on where I am after 8 years free of those delicious sticks!
1. I still get a weird hankering for it about once every 3 months. 2. I don’t think I have had more than maybe
2 night terrors this year, so that is a new PB! (Night terrors only started after the smoking stopped!)
3. I still sometimes think about buying a tanned leather jacket and wondering around whilst puffing away, but luckily I have enough self-awareness that I now know that the best I could hope for in a tanned leather jacket is looking like a 3rd rate 70s Irish mafia collector from the Bronx who is one white pudding away from a heart attack in a bath tub…and the worst and annoyingly, more realistic look I could hope for is that of a simple, sweaty fellow who would sit next to strangers on the bus, is probably on multiple registers and who, when you look at me from a far, you are convinced would smell strongly of beef and onion crisps!
So instead I now stick to my ‘looks like he could probably put a shelf up, but it wouldn’t last long....3 years max!’ look that I have curated in my later life!......this self-congratulating post really got away from me!
May the Second be life long!
