Smobriety Charticle Seven

Weight: 174 pounds

Pulse: 77 beats per minute

Song Stuck in Head: “This is How I’m Comin’,” L.L. Cool J

Risk of Smoking Resumption: Cornflower
(Low risk of smoking resumption)

Symptoms: Tiredness, lack of concentration

Clean of the cigarettes and also the anti-depressants, I seem to have crashed…today I slept until 1 p.m.
I am not proud.
Last night, it occurred to me that I could potentially never step into a smoke shop again for the rest of my life. I’m not sure how that makes me feel. Many people are unaware that smoke shops sell any number of items that have nothing to do with smoking. Yes, there are the bongs and the cleansers that supposedly purify one’s urine of any trace of marijuana, but there are also the weapons. There are knives and brass knuckles (once I watched as a savvy smoke shop owner upgraded a sale of a pair of ordinary brass knuckles into a more profitable sale of a pair of brass knuckles with a four-inch knife sticking out of the top of them. That’s the spirit of small business at work for America.) And there are also the stun guns.
I was buying cigarettes once and this guy ran into the shop, shouting “I need a stun gun! I need a stun gun!” Ever polite, I stepped back and let him go ahead of me. The shop owner pulled a stun gun out and let the man look at it. “How many volts does it have?” the panicked buyer asked, ” I need at least a hundred thousand volts!” The shop owner clearly didn’t know how many volts the gun had, and tried to divert the conversation.
Again, “How many volts does it have? I need at least a hundred thousand volts!”
The shop owner commented on the low price of the unit, only to be cut off again. “How many volts-“
The shop owner, formerly the picture of calm, finally snapped: “Enough. It’s got enough volts, okay?”
The guy wound up buying the stun gun and ran out of the store, fast as he came in.
By that point, I really needed a cigarette.
…What was I saying…?
Anyway, here’s a Frenchwoman who really, really likes Aidan Quinn.