Why Did No One Tell Me Quitting Smoking Absolves All Bad Choices

 

 

I went ahead and stopped smoking.

I decided I like buying trash more than wheezing at night. My kazoo breathing would send me into I’M A GONER panic attacks and I was convinced I’d never wake up again. I’d toss around like a baby seal caught in a net of terror palpitations.

Now instead of hate sleeps I put the money I’d spend on cigarettes into an envelope labeled SEXY FUND and buy things like Kylie Jenner lip kits, a shimmery rainbow fanny pack, Jo Koy tickets and I’m deep into the dark web looking for a sequin blazer—so hopefully soon I can look like I’m a 90s WWF tag team manager.

I’m absolutely in love with the this level of care — where I burn money just like I used to but with less cancer.

In a further attempt to give one-half of a shit about my myself, I started going to doctor appointments for a range of maladies that ladder to I’M OLD AND I GAVE BIRTH SO THINGS IN LADY TOWN ARE FUCKED. And it was at one of these appointments where I told my doctor I stopped smoking.

Y’all the praise heaped upon me was presidential fitness award-level but before troll fingers grabbed the throne when it sorta meant something. I remember sitting in my middle school gym surrounded by other motivationally challenged youth in a Hole t-shirt thinking to myself, six-minute mile WHAAAT-EVV-ERR nerds. I’m gonna need to call the corners after school.

Then I went to another appointment and this new doctor didn’t even weigh me.

THIS NEVER HAPPENS. If doctors were comedians, fat shaming is both their opener and their closer.

It was at this very moment I realized you could go ahead and tell your doctor you were freebasing crack while driving 90 mph inhaling a double whopper but pulled over to throw rocks at toddlers and the doctor would be like: “keep doing what you’re doing!”

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT QUITTING SMOKING ABSOLVES BAD CHOICES?

I mean this is pertinent information, folks. I don’t even care if you’ve never smoked in your life, just tell people you did and recently quit — it’s the only thing they’re gonna hear.

Nope, didn’t wash my hands. I just quit smoking.

I love straws, hate turtles, and I quit smoking.

I absolutely watch The Kardashians. I quit smoking.

I read 100% of your texts and responded to zero. I quit smoking.

I made cauliflower mac and cheese. I quit smoking.

Misandry is my favorite hobby. Just let this one roll, it’s a great choice.

I quit smoking is like the poo-pourri for verbal diarrhea confessionals—you get to be emotionally slutty but no one judges you for it. Which is exactly the kind of world I want to live in.

It’s so much better for your health.