I tried smoking today...

Yeah, like the title says; I tried smoking today. It was a really long day; woke up early to meet with the clients, present some creatives, sell sell sell, "Yes ma'am, it'll look better if we did it your way ma'am, but don't you think the target market would be bla bla bla bla bla,"-ing all the way til I finally got it approved, then driving back, coordinating 3 projects at the same time while juggling another big one that came up last minute.

After all that was done, or rather it should've been over when the files left the building, I sat down with a colleague who was smoking. Feeling stressed out, I just asked, "Boleh tak?" while pointing to her cig pack and she said yeah and promptly handed it to me.

Only after she saw me light up did she ask, "Hey, since when did you smoke?".

"About now..." I replied as I took my first puff in a long long time.

And I took a really long puff, exhaling after what seemed like an eternity of sucking on that damned filter and I felt... nothing...

I never really understood the concept of smoking, even when I was addicted to it more than 10 years ago. I mean, i drew no sense of calm out of it, I definitely didn't feel any cooler after smoking than I was before I started. All I did feel was light-headed, but I could bloody well achieve the same effect by spinning myself round and round til I got dizzy and dropped to the floor.

So what is the deal with smoking anyway? Why do so many people smoke? I mean you pay a good RM5.50 (or something close to that price) for a 14's pack just to get a dry throat, yellowed teeth and a high that can be achieved with a good chair on wheels? See, if anyone of you ever caught me paying for a pack of ciggarettes, I want you to take that pack, smash it into my head and call me 'potty-mouth' or 'asshole' or something, use your imagination.

I mean, I struggled with just that one stick; my throat felt funny, my can of coke tasted weird, just very very weird, and I had tar breath for the rest of the day. How some people can finish even a pack a day is beyond me.

Ugh, I think that'll be my last stick for the rest of my life. Now I gotta get me another glass of water, my throats feeling funny all over again.