I used to be a smoker.  Actually, at one point in my collegiate career I was two packs a day. You see, my good friend Jeff give me my first cig when I was 15 (that’s what our best friends do).

I remember it like it was yesterday.  I used to get a ride home from High School with Jeff because we where great friends, would partake in recreational activities together, and of course lived close to one another.  Jeff gave me this black cig, from a local hippie shop-he called them Russians.  They were the type of expensive cig that only a non-smoker would smoke…like $4 a pack, and that was back in ‘94.  I just bummed and bummed for many months until I finally inhaled-at which point I immediately b-lined to the head shop to pick up my own pack.  It was an awesome buzz!!!  And I had to have it often, so I simply couldn’t rely on my afternoon rendezvous in the ‘89 Ford Probe.  So I enjoyed and enjoyed, and nobody ever knew.

After leaving home for college at the University of Missouri, I found myself in a sea of smokers.  In general, the bible-belt has always supported the tobacco industry, and made sure to make up for all the areas in the country that didn’t do their fare share.  So ALL the people I hung out with were smokers, but I was King.  I had to go higher, faster, farther than all the others….some call it an addictive personality-I merely call it ‘doing it right’.  My Dad always said “anything worth doing is worth doing right”.  By the middle of my first year at school, I was two packs deep.  Rough.

Then came bicycles.  When I was 24, I purchased my first road bike.  The following day I entered my first crit.  I proceeded to cut a mane of hair that ran halfway down my back, and quit smoking cigs that day.  Yeah, a dedicated long-hair prior to bike racing

Please excuse the pause in my post, I have to climb into my tower-my ivory tower-in which only Nick Reistad can communicate with me (via coffee cans and string….but not just any coffee cans, really expensive coffee cans….and invisible string).  More to come regarding my tower.

So I beaten the cigs smoking, but I’ve never mentioned why I REALLY quit….money.  At one pack a day for roughly 7 years=$5100, and at two packs a day for a year=$1460 totaling $6570.  Who can afford that???  Well thanks to my favorite international airports, I can proceed to gain my manhood back…and a healthy case of ahstray-mouth at the same time….merely for the cost of a plane ticket!

Hartsfield smoker room

This is where people come to die…or try to die.  My iPhone camera sucks so I have to tell you about the warning sign on the window.  It says “this is where people come to die”.  BUt in reality it should say “this is where people come to save money”!  I don’t even have to buy smokes to get my buzz.  Although you can’t really see it, there’s enough smoke in there to supply a small commune for a week.  That’s more than enough for me.  Kelly begged me not to go in, but I felt it such a good deal (buzz for free) that I had to….I HAD TO.  That was three days ago-still buzzin!

Smoking ‘aint cool anymore.  Let me elaborate: Denis Leary-famous smoker=not cool anymore, Marlboro Man-famous smoker-dead=not cool anymore, Kate Moss-4 packs a day-not cool anymore.  Point proven…so why not quit?  Because it’s convenient!  Thus, the DEATHROOM.  At your local international airport, keep your eyes peeled for the deathroom.  Because a true smoker cannot go roughly two hours without a fix, your favorite airport has installed a room specifically for said ‘fein, with a handy automatic door to let them in and out with little or no effort.  AWESOME!!!  It’s like getting 10X the dose, in one quick sitting.

So I kind of gag at the smell of smokes now, but in all reality I could care less if people choose that for themselves.  I can only  hope  my tax dollars pay for treatment of a smoker…

Reistad, you need to add another floor to your tower…I’m leaving you behind