I QUIT SMOKING TO AVOID LOOKING LIKE A LEATHER HANDBAG
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I quit smoking six days ago. While several well-meaning individuals have congratulated me on this "milestone," I must confess: I didn't quit for noble health reasons. I quit because, quite frankly, I refuse to look like a battered leather handbag in my twilight years. Sure, the internal organ degradation was concerning, especially for someone whose vocal cords have become a side hustle, but it wasn't until I stumbled across a rather alarming Facebook article comparing identical twins (one a lifelong smoker, the other a non-smoker) that I truly confronted the horror. The smoker's face? Like a fossilised walnut. I recoiled in existential dread, envisioning a future where my name is used as a portmanteau with sagging jowls: "Jowlison." Can you imagine?
So, six days. Has it been delightful? No. The first three days felt like a relentless descent into hell, and I was a raging cunt throughout. My beautiful housemates bore the brunt of my nicotine withdrawal, casualties in a war they didn't sign up for, all because they had the audacity to cancel plans to hit the Valley on a Wednesday night. The nerve. I also found myself screaming into my phone at my best friend while hurtling down the Ipswich motorway (already a place of torment), all because some old fart we have to deal with couldn’t grasp the basic tasks his job implies. To these three gracious women: I grovel at your feet in sincere apology.
And then, the fidgeting began. Nicotine isn't just a chemical dependency, it's a lifestyle of constant hand-to-mouth movement, a habit cruelly taken from me. In a moment of desperation, I sought solace from Amazon and ordered 150 mini Chupa Chups. So, while I may not die from emphysema, my teeth are probably doomed to an equally grim fate. Ah, the paradoxes of life. Not stressed though, I have a great dentist.
Now, as someone with crippling emetophobia and trust issues that could amaze expert psychologists, I don't drink. Potential vice? Eliminated. I don't do drugs either because, frankly, I'm pussy. Another vice? Out the window. Casual sex? Not in this lifetime, apparently, I repel men like I've got a neon sign over my head reading, "Caution: Face Resembles a Smashed Boot." So, that's a third vice gone. Smoking was my one indulgence, my last bastion of rebellion. I could argue that doom-scrolling qualifies as an addiction, but even that's gone now after I realised, with genuine horror, that I'd spent six hours on TikTok last weekend. Six. Hours. The aftermath was akin to that scene in Scooby-Doo where the souls get sucked back into their bodies, I emerged with arthritic thumbs, teeth that felt like they had grown fur, and laundry still untouched. A sobering experience.
So now, here I am: vice-less. And it's... weird. It's stirring my old B.E.D. habits because, back when I was a behemoth, emotional voids were easily filled with enough food to make me feel like my organs were going to protrude through my outer epidermis. But now, with my gastric sleeve reducing my stomach to the size of a cheerio sausage, even that's no longer an option, which I am thankful for as I'm sure it's obvious from the title of this blog post that I am superficial as hell, and getting fat again would definitely be my 13th reason. So, here's the million-dollar question: Do I need a new vice? Does anyone need a vice? What is this cultural obsession with needing SOMETHING we shouldn't have? Or is secretly abusing a Satisfyer Pro 2 just society's way of dealing with existential dread? Asking for a friend.
Anyway, with all this newfound time, not spent flicking cigarettes off my balcony or doom-scrolling, I decided to go for a 5 a.m. walk this morning. So, if you see me out there looking positively slender, don't be alarmed. This is the new me.
Wishing you all an exceptional week, or perhaps just an average one. Average is perfectly fine.
Song recommendation of the week - 'L.A.' by Northeast Party House
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