I’m Just Going to Step out onto the Porch for a Moment

To be honest, I feel safest with a half-smoked cigarette in my hand. There it is, my slim filtered friend, half-gone and yet there’s still plenty left.

Wait. You what? You thought I quit? Where’d you read that?

Oh, right. Yes, it was me, wasn’t it?

Hey. I was probably drunk when I wrote that. You know how I am when I’ve been drinking.

It becomes harder and harder to sustain this smoking habit, even if it is only two or three a day; and now that winter approacheth, I am reminded, once again, that I can’t keep doing this.

Have you smoked in Minnesota? It’s not legal, apparently. The smokers have been sent scurrying, a stinky tangle of them at the doors of most public buildings, outside bars, restaurants, apartment complexes.

And courtesy of Mother Nature, in just a few short minutes it will be too dang cold to smoke outside. It’s early October, and already I’m wearing most of the clothing I own in order to step out onto the porch for a cig. Soon, I’ll be knocking on a neighbor’s door, trying to borrow a cup of woolen socks.

The temperature is set to rise again in a couple days, a 30-degree swing between today and Friday, and that should buy me some time to either gird my loins (or pay someone to gird them for me) or to resign myself to icy extremities and intermittent stench because this sitting on the porch, blowing furtive smoke toward the street? It will not stand.

Smoking. On the one hand, it’s an expensive, terrible habit.

On the other hand, it goes delightfully with beer and those funny friends of yours.

And on yet another hand, it’s a health risk, which is also expensive and does not go well with beer.

Decisions, decisions.


Also, quickly: Tomorrow is the first of three “scary stories” I’ll be posting for the next three Thursdays. If you have a scary story to link, tell me how to link it and I will!