Cigarette

25 Mar 2010

I used to smoke when I was seven.

I can't remember how long this went on for. Our next door neighbour would procure the offending death sticks and we'd smoke them under the fir tree in his back garden. I don't remember being caught - that sort of thing would stick in the mind - but evidently 7-year old me didn't have an addictive personality and I gave it up without recourse to nicorette gum. Which is handy, since it didn't exist.

I wonder how serious smokers gave up in the seventies? Did they just employ someone to follow them around than smash them repeatedly in the face if they tried to buy a packet of fags? Or did they get the cat to wee on their cigarettes, dry them on the radiator and then still smoke them, so that they associated cigarettes with an act of utter abasement?

It is a cheap and low-tech solution. Don't knock it.