Thread: Cigarette Tales

I liked when cigarettes were cheap. Back then, nearly every weekend on my way home from the bar, I used to tell myself that I was going to quit. Right before I entered the building leading to my apartment, I would place the pack (it always had a few smokes left in it) on the flat, metal cover of the trash can in front of my building, knowing that some homeless person prowling the streets late at night would scoop it up. But, then, the next morning as soon as I woke up, the first thing I sought was a smoke, and I'd call myself an idiot for getting rid of the pack the night before. This routine continued almost every weekend until I finally stopped smoking.

I did find, however, one useful purpose smoking. Those years, I smoked not only cigarettes but also marijuana. And whenever I found myself without any rolling paper, I would take a cigarette, squeeze out all the tobacco, and refill it with weed. Of course, now I'd be smoking in style: a joint with a filter.

But the memory I cherish the most from smoking was the one about my friend's father, a cigarette smoker who seldom bought himself a pack of butts. Every time, I (or somebody else) would take a pack of cigarettes out of my shirt pocket, he'd always have his hand out asking for one. My other friends and I nicknamed him "the claw" because of the way he held out his hand when he grubbed smokes from us: his three middle fingers were extended straight and his thumb and pinky were curled; to us, his hand resembled some kind of creature's claw.

My most memorable encounter with the claw occurred one evening when I was standing on a corner with a friend. Both of us were stoned on LSD digging our heads as the claw approached unnoticed at first. When he said "hello," my friend and I swung around to face him, and the very next thing he did was to extend that famous trademark and utter, "Do one of you boys have a cigarette?" I responded to his request and to his out-stretched fingers and his fleshy palm by doubling-up in laughter. Under the influence of acid, I just couldn't contain myself and had to literally run away from the corner because I didn't want to continue laughing in the man's face (since he was a friend's father). After that night, the claw never again bummed a cigarette from me, and everytime he looked my way, he eyeballed me with suspicion.

The laughing outburst revealed my drug addiction. (Sometimes it pays to be grumpy)

LOL

i smoked weed off and on all my life, at the moment i spend 10 days straight headed, 2 to 4 days on pot. I used to buy embassy number one cigarettes and break up for joints, but on one occasion i found fly eggs in the tobacco. White eggs, about 0.1 cm diameter, 7 of them fixed together as one flat sheet in a hexagonal pattern. I put them in a plastic food bag, tied off the end and put in a front room drawer. Then i wrote to Embassy explaining my story, and they said they need the eggs to test them, which i refused to do. I did though explain how i would photo them and give them the photos, only when i opened the drawer they were in they flew out as soon as it was opened.

So i stopped buying embassy number one cigarettes, and changed to regal king size, but found beetle parts in one, so now i never buy anything other than roll my own.

Have you ever smoked a pre-rolled cigarette which tasted sweet and awful? Well that was probably insect parts you were smoking!

I like the mixture of kind consideration & disregard in the idea of a gift to feed someone else's addiction while trying to overcome one's own. I imagine the packet taunting a homeless person attempting to quit.

Seems fun. I wouldn't mind getting high once before I died.

I liked the first part, it's what I do all the time. I buy a pack, smoke a few and kick myself for smoking. So I crumble up the rest and bin them. Next day I kick myself for getting rid of them and buy a new packet.

And the insect thing is just yuk. I think this is the first thing anyone has ever said that might actually put me off smoking!

@ TheGrandWriter. It's not what it's made out to be. A bit like sex for the first time, you think it's going to be great but you end up walking away with your dignity in tatters and a mess to clean up.

@Potty, I'm only curious. By the way, I'm dreading both activities if I ever have to participate in them. But being 14, I haven't had any experience in either. But again, it's only out of pure curiosity at this point.

For some strange reason I had this idea you were of the elderly persuasion! Just the way you said "Before I die" I took that to mean it was on the cards pretty soon. It was sort of cool hearing an older person say he would like to try getting high once before he died. Gave me lots to speculate on, why he hasn't tried it already or how he would go about scoring.

Back to the story though: Re-reading I also liked the way the character got found out about his drug use and the claws reaction to it. The fact the claw was shamless enough to scadge a ciggy off anyone but decided not treat the character differently gave me a sense of shame for the character. I felt for him like I had hit rock bottom.

Liked it. Could use a little work with the over flow however.

I quit smoking for four years and recently picked it up due to some increased stresses as of late, so I can share some of those sentiments about telling yourself you'll quit the night before and by the time the morning comes you're just buying another pack anyway. As far as using an empty cigarette to smoke weed, I don't know how well that worked out for you but I've heard in the past that the filter actually removes a lot of the THC that would otherwise be making its way into your blood stream. As a result it's somewhat counter productive because you end up smoking the stuff that doesn't actually do anything. I used to have a cigarette stuffing machine that came with empty cigarettes, which if you actually used it for tobacco would have been far cheaper than buying an actual pack, but I found when I tried to smoke marijuana out of them it definitely didn't work as well as I would have liked. But that story is funny, probably not a good idea to be out in public while tripping balls haha I know from experience.