PreTeena by Allison Barrows for June 25, 2013

Hold your breath. Keep holding. Keep holding. When your lungs start to scream in pain for air, keep on holding. That’s sort of what it’s like to crave that next smoke. Or so I’m told. I was never dumb enough to let the big tobacco companies hook me on their nicotine-delivery system. (Not to be judgmental or anything.)

Story similar to husky51. Started at age 13 at a prep school. Quit at 19, after getting close to 3 packs a day of unfiltered Luckies. 44 years later, my lungs are still paying the price… but if I hadn’t quit, I’d probably be dead.

I have never smoked – anything. My husband started smoking around 15-16. When our first daughter arrived (he was 42) he cut down and only smoked outside. One day, almost a year after our second daughter was born (he was 46), he took out his pack to have a smoke, looked at it, and threw the whole thing away, and hasn’t had a cig since. He’s now 52.

Nice try, kid…

. . . but 743 days is just over two years . . . .

I’m 54, never smoked, never wanted to. Grandfather smoked since he was 9 or 10 quit cold turkey when he was 70 lived another 25 years.

Your math is kinda not working…at all ;-)

I also tried smoking when I was young, around 19 I guess. I only smoked for a few months, and never inhaled (yeah I know you’ve heard that somewhere before). So I never got hooked. Then one day I really thought about it and realized that if I went on with it I’d eventually inhale and then get hooked. I was only smoking a couple cigarettes a day at this time. Cigarettes were around 55 cents a pack and I thought about what it would add up to over a year’s time and that the money could be better spent on other things. Now when I think about what cigarettes cost these days I have to laugh. I know people who quit and then put the money they were saving into a fund and at the end of a year treat themselves to something very nice like a vacation.

Forty years ago, in my hometown mall, there was a shop called Perkins Tobacco. They mostly had pipe tobacco, but also cigarettes and cigars. They also sold candy – I suppose an alternative or a “crutch” for those trying to quit. But the shop smelled of fresh tobacco, and the smell was marvelous. Tobacco unburned can have a real sweet fragrance to it. And something tells you to just go ahead and try it (and it’s not the sales clerk).

If there’s any true devil weed, it has to be tobacco.

Now for the comic: the girls’ story is a take-the-cake winner!If I were that teacher, I’d take the girls to the principal and have them repeat their story. This one is just too good to not share! Would love to see the principal’s reaction.

John Bollinger said, (re Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette)

@Clark Kent “Made famous by Phil Harris.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~But first done by Tex Williams, writ by Merle Travis.Williams couldn’t stop smoking and died of lung cancer.

Uncle Norbert annoyed the family for years with his ever constant, “I quit! You can do it too!”. Karma caught up with him, though. He got run over by a Chesterfield truck. (Old brand.)

That’s one bad habit I never developed…Sign on the front door:

This is a smoke free house It was developed with prideIf you feel the need for weed Then take your butt outside!!

Since the smell of tobacco is on their breath, I can see the teacher not believing them. I tried it for a while but I saw it as nothing but a nuisance that got in the way of doing things. Dropped it as easily as a wad of paper going in the trash.

Smoked for a couple weeks at 12, quit until 14, smoked for a while then, quit until 16, when it became “sanctioned” by my parents.Smoked until I was 44 (but gradually cutting down via lower and lower nicotine brands) until at 44, I was able to tell my lady, “Hon, when I finish this carton, I promise I will stop forever.”I’d rather DIE than break a promise to her. 17 years later, so far so good.

I applaud everyone who’s managed to quit. I’ve never smoked myself, but I had a roommate who had, in her younger years, used about everything you can think of, but had managed to get herself clean. When I asked her what had been the hardest to give up, there was no hesitation in her answer: tobacco. Worse than crack, she said.

I wonder what the girls would say if they were questioned about what the other students looked like. I f they gave the exact same answer than they rehearsed their response, if they give totally different answers they didn’t think through their excuse.