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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (44372)	1/2/2000 12:19:00 AM
From: E	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71178

That's WONDERFUL. I noticed a sign in a drugstore window last night for cigarettes at $3.35 a pack. He can add some to his figures, and also rest assured that one pack usually rises to two or more. My sister, a heavy smoker, had deep nasal polyps a few years ago. They were described as "pre-cancerous" by her ENT doctor (who begged her to stop smoking) and had to be biopsied, and she was worried about it, so I went down to DC to be with her for the surgery. Fortunately, the biopsy was negative, but the operation was no fun. In her room shortly after she woke from the anesthesia, she wanted to smoke, but there were oxygen tanks there and smoking was forbidden. She could barely walk, she was barely coherent, she had bloody packing in her nose and was hooked up to an IV drip. But she got out of bed and held on to the stand that held the IV bag and used it to steady herself by pushing it, IV in her arm, down to the only smoking area on the floor, a group of plastic chairs and hard couches near some elevators, and smoked a cigarette. Also smoking by the elevators were other poor addicted wretches, including two without hair-- the side effects of cancer treatment. You might mention that to CW. One odd thing was that my sister has always insisted that she doesn't enjoy cigarettes at all. That she HAD to have them-- but that there was no pleasure in it. That isn't true for all tobacco addicts, but she insists it is for many. Talk about the worst of all possible worlds. Another true Cigarette Tale. There was a woman in the hospital with my mother who was dying of emphysema. She lived in her bed, breathing from an oxygen tank. But every day she left her bed for 15 minutes, and was taken in a wheelchair to a lounge where she smoked one cigarette. After this, she was taken back to bed again, to the oxygen, gasping for breath. She told me that she lived for that fifteen minutes. The other 23 3/4 hours were to be endured until she could get to her daily ration of one cigarette. It was a bargain she'd struck with her doctor. She hated cigarettes, too. She wasn't very old, and felt they'd robbed her of much of her life. Those two images made a very deep impression on me-- my barely awake, bleeding sister pushing that IV drip down to the smoking area, and the dying Doris lying there waiting for the next day to arrive so she could have one more smoke. I think most people who still smoke really can't help themselves. Edit: I am surprised the college put smoking and non-smoking roommates together.

To: Rambi who wrote (44372)	1/2/2000 12:33:00 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

I had a guy in front of me buy a pack of Marlboro Lights in the checkout lane. This being California, land of amazingly hostile Gov't-sponsored antismoking commercials, the ciggies were in a locked case and it took the poor girl 5 minutes to dig out a pack. The charge was almost $4.50. For twenty smokes. Heroin is practically a value play in this climate. And the breath is better.

To: Rambi who wrote (44372)	1/2/2000 2:16:00 AM
From: jpmac	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

Hah, yourself! I'm green with envy. I want a fix. I'm a penny-pincher and tried that tactic with myself to no avail. Somehow money spent on drugs isn't as silly to me as money spent a pair of shoes without holes. One keeps me sane, the other just keeps my big toe warm. But I will prevail. And while we're on the subject (we were weren't we).. what is it with people? I hate them. Goofy morons. They obviously aren't DARians, that rare breed of folk. So there. Geez, I do need something.