The Wake

We all remember our first semester freshman year. We fled to our dorm rooms every chance we got (but still managed to never speak to our roommate who was ALWAYS THERE) and avoided as much human contact as possible. We had no friends at ALL, except the kids from our high school we clung to in the first couple weeks. We were desperate, we were lonely and we were pathetic. Right? … Right?

Well, I was. I thought I’d never have friends again. The future was a bleak black hole of despair and woe, where I would sit looking up at all those oh-so-fortunate personable freshman, who relied on the “personality” and “wit” to win people over. Like those even mean anything!

And so I remained in the black pit. I was so depressed and lonesome that I did something I hadn’t done in a long while since at least the end of high school three months prior—unless I was at a party. Or a family function. Or if nothing good was on TV. Something devious. Something sinful. Something downright “just a no-no.” I smoked. I smoked and I smoked and I smoked ‘til I couldn’t smoke no more. And even then I kept smoking.

Smoking gave me a nice sense of power over my life. I’d sit in my room and right around my 187th game of solitaire would think to myself, “I’m going to go have a cigarette. A cigarette is kind of like a friend! At least it gets me out of this two by two foot cubicle I stow my shit in.” And so I was off! Down the elevator, through the lobby and an appropriate 25 feet away from the building, I began my journey West to flavor country.

A strange thing occurred as I spent those countless hours and dollars on cigarettes behind Middlebrook. There were other people out there! Well, not really people, but other smokers. Other sycophants on the Medicare system and (mild) devastators to the ozone layer! I gawked for a while, eventually making my way over to say what will undoubtedly become the most genius phrase I will utter in my collegiate career.

“Got a light?”

YES! Subtle, simple, effective. Brilliant! I could see them with lit cigarettes, they couldn’t say no unless they really hated me. I was in! From then on, I would catch the other smokers outside and chit chat until eventually we scheduled all our smoke breaks at the same times. Soon a group of about twelve was meeting every hour on the hour to have cigarettes. We swapped brands, traded coming-out-of-the-smoky-closet-to-the-parents stories and jokes about how quitting is a myth invented by popular culture to scare small, nicotine-addicted children.

Looking back on this, I wouldn’t really give it up. I’ve met a lot of great friends smoking outside and an even larger number of good friends and acquaintances (there’s a HUGE smokers’ network out there). I probably have connections to White House insiders and don’t even know it because I wouldn’t recognize faces unless they were shrouded in a haze of smoke.

Now, as we all know, smoking is bad for you. Smoking causes, among other things: increased risk of heart disease which already affects one out of every two woman, who are smoking in unrecorded numbers nowadays, lung cancer as well as a myriad of other cancers, impotence (as the nurse at every clinic I go to dapperly chimes to me) and birth defects. In the vein of less serious consequences, it makes your teeth yellow (my teeth have lost that “Miss Alabama” gleam they once had), your circulation poor, especially in your hands, (I masturbate just for the heat now) and they cost a SHIT LOAD of moolah (I also masturbate because I can’t afford to go on dates anymore).

So this all begs the question, why would anyone want to get people to stop this wonderful and personable habit? This April is quit smoking month at the U, with the U participating in the Quit and Win Challenge, a competition to see who can quit smoking and win a $3000 gift certificate to either one or any combination of more than one of Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, Home Depot, IKEA, Sports Authority, Midwest Mountaineering, or Cabela’s. Or they can win a $500 gift certificate for second place. And if you do win, your smoke-free buddy also wins $300 gift certificate. I mean, hey, they didn’t have to quit anything right? They probably have made the difference in prize values in what they haven’t paid for cigarettes in anyway.

I plan to participate in Quit and Win, though my chances of both quitting and winning are comparatively low. Even if I don’t win the $3000 gift certificate but do end up kicking the habit, who cares? It’s really worth more than $3000 anyway. It’s a pretty decent assurance on your health (and sexual status, damn you gossipy nurses) for the next couple years.

Apart from the University putting forth a valiant effort on its behalf to curb smoking, non-smokers can help too! Don’t scold or pry; that just makes us smokers feel rebellious and we’ll smoke even MORE. Just ask my eighth grade health teacher. All non-smokers have to do is try to talk to smokers more often! Maybe if I hadn’t felt so abandoned and decrepit my first semester I never would have started smoking again. If I had had friends like you, you dear, tobacco-free reader, then maybe I’d be able to run up that flight of stairs, or jog to class or type an article for a student magazine without having to stop and gasp frantically for air. Think about the good you’ll do!

Have you hugged your smoker today?

Cole Dennis is a Voices guest columnist and beloved smoker. He welcomes comments at .