Day CCCLII

The Landlord

     There are so many things that can cause us to smoke, if we let them. Then we have bozos in government raising taxes on tobacco; authorities suing big tobacco to recoup Medicaid losses from tobacco related illnesses; local laws against public smoking; and society’s current discrimination against smokers; all of these things cause us much anxiety. Isn’t it best to just quit? I did, thank God, and so can you.

     We should, those of us that are healthy…we should give thanks every day that we’re healthy. My tales, examples of what made some us give in to tobacco, are all true. The names, and places were changed for obvious reasons. I need to add that prayer helps, whether you believe me or not, it has helped me.

     Recently, a pal of mine had a litany of crap fall upon him, and it literally tested his determination to stay quit. I’m happy to say he didn’t even think about it, didn’t even have the desire, and not till now did I realized that through it all he hasn’t smoked. He’s still in the midst of the crisis, and he tells me, he keeps saying, over and over:

     “This too shall pass!”

          He lives on the first floor of a really cool building, probably put up in the sixties. A couple of months ago the floor in his kitchen caved in. Thank God nobody was home at the time. He came home, and the floor was concave. When the super showed up, he looked at it, and…

      “Holy shit...ummmmm, gotta tell the old man,” and quickly left.

    Hours later the old man came in with his advisers, the super, a few handymen, the painter, and they were all making their comments:

     “Wow!”

     “Holy shit!”

     “Lookit det, uh!”

     But what my pal remembered most, was the landlord being worried about how much it was going to cost him to fix it.