Truesday: On Playing Nice With Others

A whole year has passed. Many who know me today would never guess it, and many who knew me then continue not to believe it. It’s almost as if I’d never lived that particular life, even though it was an integral part of how I defined myself. My place in society. Who I grew to believe myself to be.

I used to smoke cigarettes. I used the mouth I have on my face to do this. Sometimes my nose. If it had ever been convenient, or if my facial orifices had somehow been blocked by bandage or horrific scar tissue, I might have used my ass.

But that opportunity/tragedy never presented itself.

There’s something oddly polarizing about being a smoker. Of all the vices I can think of, it’s the one where the line between those in it, and those out, is quite distinct and vocal, however hypocritical. The list of mouth-frothing, avid non-smokers who have pestered me for a cigarette after their fifth shot of Dram is only matched by the number of repentant and frowny, “dude, I totally need to stop feeeeeding this [long, two breath drag from two Camel Lights in mouth] goddamned monkey, man” smokers I’ve had to endure the pointless confessions of.

Yet that distinct line between the smoking and non-smoking persists, heavily bolstered by whatever marketing promotions back their entrenched positions. Really, it’s an entirely fabricated difference in modern humanity.

In every business I’ve ever slaved, there has always been a smoking class and a non-smoking class. One group takes hourly breaks to go out and suck some sweet cancer while the other stays inside to cry incessantly about it.

Crying Staffer 1, wide-eyed and pointing toward closing elevator full of midday parking lot dwellers: “Why they get to leave every hour like that? Takes five minutes for their ass to go out, and five to come back.”

Crying Staffer 2, idly drinking cup of cold coffee: “Yeah.”

CS 1, gesticulating as if touretts-stricken with arms on fire: “By the time they done smokin’ and shootin’ the shit or jackin’ each other off or whatever, the whole damn work hour done gone by.”

CS 2, still not doing shit: “Yeah.“

CS 1, storming off: “I’m so mad I’m gonna go eat this pack of Ho-Hos, some Doritos, and these Skittles. And read the entire innernet now.”

CS 2, seriously considering first picking butt, then nose; nods positively: “You go girl.”

Your desire to belong in one crew or the other would rely solely upon which had the most office influence. If the cool and capable were the ones outside sucking on the skinny ghost dicks, well, then it would be highly likely that you’d want to be among them.

Because that’s where all the real business decisions were going to be made.

If the cool and capable were inside, looking down their productive proboscises with disenchanted dismay at the addicts trolling off to commit brand-name suicide, then you’d likely want to align yourself with them. Even if you secretly smoked a pack on your lunch break.

It really is part of the political processes ingrained in the everyday happenings of today’s culture. Especially here in Texas, where relationships are more important than any quantitatively measured index. You see, even though there’s a definite line which exists between the smoker and non-smoker, it isn’t based on race, political affiliation, or breeding. It isn’t genetic predisposition, something you’re “born into”, and it isn’t exactly voluntary (once you’ve been in it long enough) either. More and more often the line of differentiation appears based on an assumed disregard for everything all the non-smokers hold so dear (clean air, clean lungs, butt-free streets), and the smokers simply never bother to defend themselves properly.

Which is why the group of smokers tend to rally around one outspoken, unapologetic smoker. One twig nibbler who is openly defiant about their penchant for toking deep on the Carolina Cancer Makers. They help rebuild the ever-faltering support of their fellow smokers, many of whom actually feel guilty about their habit and simply wish they’d never started back in tenth grade.

But that one smoker LOVES it. And finds ways to help the others to assuage their pointless guilt and just “fucking enjoy it, man! Marlboro country, bitches!” The guilty smokers focus on the daily sermon, huddled around the emergency exit of some suburban office building, not too close to the nearby picnic-bench lunchers but close enough to feel their scorn. As they cobble together in thin paranoia, it is typical to hear them reminisce about the days when they could smoke IN their office during banking hours. Back when everything was tweed, orange, and asbestos. How they’d smoke a pack before lunch, hop on a Braniff flight to Dallas with their high-heeled “assistant”, but still make it back in time to catch Willie at The Armadillo before nickel long-necks stopped being served.

Something like that.

I used to be that guy. The guy who took his chances and lit up in a bar in San Fran on a rainy night, telling myself “well, if they’re SERIOUS about this no-smoking thing, they’ll stop me” and then I’d quickly notice that twenty other people lit up before I finished smoking mine.

But like I said, not all vices are created equal. And as we enter into new phases in our lives, some anchors are simply too unreasonable to continue dragging along behind us. Some habits prove too unwieldy and inconsiderate of our other desires. The china white doesn’t care about the kids. The cheese doesn’t care about the tenth grade. The dragracing doesn’t care about your fear of dying in a popping metal box of fire.

And those smokes sure as hell didn’t care about last soccer season, or the upcoming marathon. But aside from their brazen lack of support for everything else I do, I sure as hell miss hanging out with the fuckers. I just wish they’d play nice.