Monday - Daddy's Pacifiers
Apr. 3rd, 2006 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about how it seems that children come into the world already knowing how to read, as implausible as that sounds. They can't read much, but they can all read the words "Keep out of Reach of Children" and they make a bee line for anything that these words are written on.
On Saturday I discovered that I have something in common with my year-old son. It turns out that neither of us like the way that Jeff's cigarettes taste.
Since Jeff lives in a house with a non-smoking spouse and a small child, he is limited to where he is allowed to smoke. The only place he smokes inside of the house is sitting in front of the fireplace, with the cigarette held inside of it so that the smoke goes up the chimney. He goes to sleep around 5 A.M., and I wake up around 7 or 8 A.M. on the weekends. When he finished his last cigarette early Saturday morning, he left it and his lighter sitting on the brick hearth in front of the fireplace, which I failed to notice when I got up.
I was fixing my son's breakfast while he played in the living room when I heard a little squawk of protest followed by a whimper. As I came around the corner I saw my son holding what was left of a cigarette in one of his hands, scowling at it. The front of his pajamas and his face were covered in tobacco and he was trying to spit out the ground leaves that were in his mouth.
"Baby, no," I told him, "bad idea. Menthols are nasty." I could tell from his expression that he agreed. I doubt he'll eat any more of them. As I cleaned him up and tried to wipe off his tongue with a clean paper towel, I discussed with him how bad tobacco is for your health and that it's not a good idea to smoke it or eat it. It's especially good to avoid his father's cigarettes, which are in a whole class of horror all by themselves.
I haven't eaten one of Jeff's cigarettes, but I did take a drag on one when we first started dating. I have never smoked as a habit, but when I was younger I was a casual smoker and I would smoke when I was around other people who did. Most of my friends smoked Marlboro Lights back then, so that's what I was used to. Jeff had left his cigarette sitting in an ashtray while he stepped away for a minute, and I picked it up, put it to my lips and inhaled deeply. Within a few seconds, I thought I was going to die. My life actually flashed before my eyes, all 20 years of it up to that point.
Jeff walked in the room to find me sputtering and coughing. He began patting my back and asked what I had done. I was coughing so hard that I couldn't talk, but I pointed to the cigarette in the ashtray.
"Oh, honey, these are Kool Filter Kings," he said sympathetically, "They aren't for beginners. Are you okay?"
I shook my head and tried to regain my composure. I had tears streaming down my face from coughing so hard.
"I've smoke before," I told him once I could speak again.
"Obviously you haven't smoked these before," he said, "They're pretty powerful."
"No kidding," I replied. That's the last cigarette I ever took a drag on. That one Kool Filter King cured me of any temptation I ever might have had to take up smoking as a habit.
I'm hoping my son feels the same way about the cigarette he tried this weekend, too. If the taste of the unburned tobacco didn't do the trick, I suspect that if he is ever brave and foolish enough to light one up when he is older, a single drag will dissuade him from it for the rest of his life. Like I said, Menthols are nasty.
On Saturday I discovered that I have something in common with my year-old son. It turns out that neither of us like the way that Jeff's cigarettes taste.
Since Jeff lives in a house with a non-smoking spouse and a small child, he is limited to where he is allowed to smoke. The only place he smokes inside of the house is sitting in front of the fireplace, with the cigarette held inside of it so that the smoke goes up the chimney. He goes to sleep around 5 A.M., and I wake up around 7 or 8 A.M. on the weekends. When he finished his last cigarette early Saturday morning, he left it and his lighter sitting on the brick hearth in front of the fireplace, which I failed to notice when I got up.
I was fixing my son's breakfast while he played in the living room when I heard a little squawk of protest followed by a whimper. As I came around the corner I saw my son holding what was left of a cigarette in one of his hands, scowling at it. The front of his pajamas and his face were covered in tobacco and he was trying to spit out the ground leaves that were in his mouth.
"Baby, no," I told him, "bad idea. Menthols are nasty." I could tell from his expression that he agreed. I doubt he'll eat any more of them. As I cleaned him up and tried to wipe off his tongue with a clean paper towel, I discussed with him how bad tobacco is for your health and that it's not a good idea to smoke it or eat it. It's especially good to avoid his father's cigarettes, which are in a whole class of horror all by themselves.
I haven't eaten one of Jeff's cigarettes, but I did take a drag on one when we first started dating. I have never smoked as a habit, but when I was younger I was a casual smoker and I would smoke when I was around other people who did. Most of my friends smoked Marlboro Lights back then, so that's what I was used to. Jeff had left his cigarette sitting in an ashtray while he stepped away for a minute, and I picked it up, put it to my lips and inhaled deeply. Within a few seconds, I thought I was going to die. My life actually flashed before my eyes, all 20 years of it up to that point.
Jeff walked in the room to find me sputtering and coughing. He began patting my back and asked what I had done. I was coughing so hard that I couldn't talk, but I pointed to the cigarette in the ashtray.
"Oh, honey, these are Kool Filter Kings," he said sympathetically, "They aren't for beginners. Are you okay?"
I shook my head and tried to regain my composure. I had tears streaming down my face from coughing so hard.
"I've smoke before," I told him once I could speak again.
"Obviously you haven't smoked these before," he said, "They're pretty powerful."
"No kidding," I replied. That's the last cigarette I ever took a drag on. That one Kool Filter King cured me of any temptation I ever might have had to take up smoking as a habit.
I'm hoping my son feels the same way about the cigarette he tried this weekend, too. If the taste of the unburned tobacco didn't do the trick, I suspect that if he is ever brave and foolish enough to light one up when he is older, a single drag will dissuade him from it for the rest of his life. Like I said, Menthols are nasty.
