My little guy wants to smoke. He fake smokes straws, string sticks, sticks, chopsticks, anything that resembles a cigarette. He walks around puffing all of the time.
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Much like my little guy, I was probably 4 when I knew I would be a smoker.
I wore a cheerleader outfit, jelly heels and carried my plastic yellow purse everywhere we went. My little plastic purse had plastic lipstick, plastic nail polish, REAL Chapstick and a little mirror and my candy cigarettes. We lived in Colorado at the time and each time my parents would go to the 7 Eleven down the street to get a new pack of smokes, I would replenish my supply too.
Do you remember the candy cigarettes? The packs I would get you could literally blow smoke out of the one end and then use them as chewing gum after you used all the smoke. Now-a-days it’s hard to believe something like that existed but it did and I LOVED them. At a pack a week, I developed a pretty bad habit.
Everyone around me smoked and I could NOT wait to get older so I too could enjoy the benefits of the stress relieving sticks.
My parents were kids having kids. They threw lots of parties at their house so they didn’t have to pay for any babysitters. Most, if not all, their friends also had kids and the kids would all hang out drinking root beer and smoking candy smokes in our own gang, just like the adults.
I can’t remember ONE adult not smoking. But that was back in the eighties.
When we eventually moved to Minnesota, I was a little older but still sure I was going to smoke.
I was eight when we were in the parking lot of the post office waiting for my mom to come out. My aunt was in the front seat smoking and my cousin, brother and I were in the backseat. I started talking about how cool smoking was and how I could NOT WAIT to be older to smoke.
My aunt turned around handing me her lit cigarette and said, “if you think it’s so cool, why wait? you should start now”.
I took a minute to think about what she said. Maybe I was a little frightened I would get in trouble for smoking but eventually I came to this conclusion…
“You’re right! Why wouldn’t I start now!?”
I grabbed the cigarette and took the biggest drag of my life. It tasted like shit and I coughed for at least an hour afterward. That would be the first and LAST drag I would take. Sometimes lessons are learned the hard way.
My cousin and brother witnessed my terrible experience and they began lecturing me on how dumb I was to think that smoking is cool and they will NEVER smoke.
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Fast forward twenty something years and I still haven’t touched any tobacco. My husband is not a smoker and really there are only a couple people that my little guy sees smoking. I don’t know what it is now that gives it such appeal. When I was young you could smoke ANYWHERE and they had commercials, movies and famous smokers now it’s nothing like that. People are banished to closed off areas to smoke.
So what is the appeal? What would make a little dude think it’s cool?
I may never know that answer. If he doesn’t come to his sense, I just may have to use my aunt’s tactics. While I never touched a cigarette after that experience, I can’t say the same for my brother or my cousin.
Both started at about 10 years old and continue to smoke…
Wishing you happy and healthy lungs.
Much love and peace,
Jes xoxo