The History of Me

I remember hearing once or twice,

could have been more than that, I

can’t recall, but it was about the

consequences of cigarette smoking.

For every one smoked, it reduces a

lifetime by five-minutes. I got to

figuring out that it takes about five

minutes to puff away at that noxious

weed, and thus five-minutes of life will

have effectively elapsed. Beyond the

biologically injurious path, it’s a matter

of basic math—twiddling thumbs, picking

the nose, any time spent doing those

superfluous deeds reduces the time

you may have had to live life in a more

fruitfully productive way. Now we’ve

all been told, and by now everyone

of sound mind and reasoning should

know, smoking is a bad thing—cancer,

emphysema, COPD, heart and lung

disease—some bad shit it’s plain to

see. For all the habitual puffing I have

done in my time, instead of surviving

to nearly 72-years, I should have died

at the age of negative twenty-five.

Throw in the futile thumb-twiddling

and nose picking, and I won’t even

bother with all the alcohol I managed

to consume. I look at it this way, had I

been born a thousand years ago, before

cigarettes were available, twiddling

thumbs and nose-picking aside, no

way today I’d be alive. I knew a guy

at thirty-five who never smoked, drank,

or was known to uselessly fritter away

his time; he was run over one day

crossing the street with the light. Damn

cursed automobiles! What’s more, he

didn’t even drive!

Chris Hanch 11-17-18