Don't Call Me Marge: Quitting Smoking: Day One

So, I'm quitting smoking. Again. As the old joke goes, I'm great at quitting smoking, I've done it dozens of times. Ha ha ha.

But seriously kids, for real this time, I'm really, really quitting smoking. I've been smoking for longer than I care to admit, if only because it would upset my mother. I've been telling myself I'm gonna quit since I was 16 years old. Sometime in my early 20s, I decided I would achieve this feat by the time I turned 30. When you're 20, you don't really believe you're ever gonna turn 30.

Well, I'm gonna be 30 in a little over eight months, so it's time to stop talking sh*t and start doing sh*t, or, as the case may be, stop doing sh*t, the sh*t in question being smoking.

This is what I have in mind.

I decided to blog about this because Solitary Momma blogger Christina Majaski encouraged me to. “It will hold you accountable to your readers,” she said. “It could be helpful for others,” she said. “You'd be doing a service to mankind,” she said.

Ok, ok, she didn't say that, I just sort of read it between the lines. In any case I haven't tried writing or blogging about it before, so it might help. I won't be blogging about it every day because I'll be very busy not smoking, but still. Surely all my faithful readers will support me in my cause.

Lots of people say that cold turkey is the best way to quit smoking, but that's the exact method I've failed at repeatedly in the past, so it's right out. I've also attempted the old cut-down-and-quit method several times, but after a few days of cutting down I lose my resolve and start cutting back up again, so that's right out too.

After some preliminary research, I decided to try the nicotine patch. Several of my friends have recommended it. It doesn't seem to be as effective as its manufacturers would have have us believe, but neither is anything else. The nicotine replacement therapy will, of course, prolong my misery, but it may help to keep those around me entirely out of misery or, failing that, at least alive.

For some reason, I felt compelled to sniff the patch before I put it on. It made me sneeze. It itched like crazy for the first five minutes, but then stopped.

I have also purchased a bag of lollipops (it's a hand-to-mouth thing). You would not believe how difficult it is to find a straight-up bag of lollipops in West By God. Seriously, you guys, it took me like, an hour. I'm not talking any special “quitting smoking” lollipops, I mean just regular lollipops. Apparently nobody buys “just lollipops” anymore, it's all this “assorted candy” sh*t. I was all, mothernuckers, I need something I can hold in my hand and put in my mouth, and then take out of my mouth and hold in my hand. Rinse, lather, repeat. How f*cking hard is that?

I wound up getting Valentine's Day lollipops, which were the only ones I could find. Thank God it's January.

Progress so far:

I hate everybody.