The Sandspur

Issue date: 4/29/05 Section: Life & Times

My first puff of a cigarette was in a crowded bar. I sat there and watched Ken smoking casually, and somehow I felt that I wanted to try it. I couldn't ask him to try it because he wouldn't have been able to hear me over the blaring music, so I reached for it. He looked at me quizzically. I'd always told him he shouldn't smoke and was very against ever doing it myself. However, I was sitting in an extremely loud bar in the middle of a crowd. I was nowhere near being in my element, so I figured that I'd see what else was a little bit out of my normal comfort level.

I guess part of what made me take the first drag was because of wanting to see what it was like, but I also knew that Ken found a girl smoking to be very sexy. I don't understand it to this day, but I wanted to try it for him. After that night, it was a while before I smoked again.

Remembering the first time I'd met Ken, I loved the smell of flavored clove cigarettes. The first time I'd kissed him, I could smell the Djarum Black smoke in his long, black hair. I guess that's what made the clove cigarettes so alluring. Well, there was also the fact that there were cherry flavored ones, and I'm a big fan of cherry flavoring.

The next time I smoked, I had decided that I wanted to smoke cherry flavored clove cigarettes, but that I needed to work on learning how to smoke before I could start smoking the special premium cigarettes. This sentiment led me to a Walgreen's. I was so nervous. I was 19 years old, and therefore certainly legal to be smoking, but the fear of the unknown and untried gripped me as I asked for a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights. Rightfully, I was asked for my ID, which I had readily available.

On my drive back to Rollins College, I wanted to smoke a cigarette. I was nervous. I didn't even know how to light the small cylinder. I managed to light it and started smoking. Learning to take the smoke into my lungs was a task quickly learned. Despite the fact that I was only smoking an ultra light cigarette, I felt like I was flying in the sky. Talking to Ken, he didn't understand what I was feeling, but newer smokers, I would come to find out, wind up getting something close to a high from the nicotine in cigarettes. I wound up somewhat dizzy but very awake. My walk back to my dorm room had never been so exciting. The trees seemed greener, and the sky seemed bluer.

After only three cigarettes, I felt like I was ready to start on the good ones. This required that I bought them, which was, yet again, a task. I procrastinated for multiple reasons. First, I had no idea where I would acquire them. Second, I needed to figure out what kind I wanted.

Continued...

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