The Luckiest Bastard on Earth/How I Quit Smoking

Our friend Corin is here. He and Jethro are really good friends. He was almost in our wedding, but was late and missed it. He cried.

Anyway, I like him very much. He also happens to be the luckiest bastard on the planet. Case in point: He went into a study abroad program when he was in college. He went to England. While he was there he met a cute, uninhibited girl named Jane. Jane bonked him in his dorm room, on the metro, and in a restroom. He liked Jane alot. He wanted to show Jane a good time. Unfortunately, he was broke. Fortunately, his parents had given him a credit card to use in case of a dire emergency. He checked the card limit. It was 10K. He decided that ferrying Jane around in a BMW convertible, having sex with Jane in a 5 star hotel suite and eating caviar with Jane afterwords qualified as a dire emergency. They lived it up. He checked the balance again. It was $0. He had to face the music. With growing dread, he returned to the states.

Corin came home and began feeling ill. He went to the doctor, and after a series of tests, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer - the same day his parents got the credit card bill. They decided that that he had enough to worry about without them going bitchcakes on him, so they didn't mention it. Corin, after undergoing treatment, is completely cured of thyroid cancer and now has the guilt free remembrences of Jane and the credit card. Luckiest bastard on the planet.

I think I'm kind of jealous of him. I spent 3 months in Italy and only spent $500. I walked everywhere and skipped lunches (or stole food from my roommates). I also quit smoking unintentionally. I was so poor that I was buying the government issue cigarettes called "Nacionales." These cigarettes were so gross the homeless refused them.

One day, I was sitting in my room contemplating lighting up, and I couldn't bring myself to do it. All day, the nicotine demon clawed at my will, but every time I thought of lighting that putrid weed, I would start to dry-heave. After a week of clawing at my face and weeping when I'd enter a bar, the craving began to leave a little, and I discovered that it was cheaper to just let it be. I never started back up again either. Every once in awhile I'll smoke one if I have been drinking heavily. The sweet nicotine rush will leave me longing for the days when I was pure; before the kids had corrupted me into relinquishing the simple joys of smoking and writing, or smoking and drinking, or smoking and playing piano, frisbee, or strip poker. The next day, though, I will be cursing the one drop of liquor that numbed my senses into thinking that a smoke was a good idea.