Stop for now ≠ quit for good

I stopped smoking ten days ago. When I tell people so, including my GP, I get either of these two responses:

• Oh, brilliant! Good for you! (Of course, smoking is no longer kicky nowadays.)
  
• Goodness me, I don't even know you smoke! (As I'm not an addict, people rarely notice that I puff fags from time to time.)

Accordingly, I have to tell them that in fact I 'stop for the nonce' rather than 'quit for always'. I stop simply because I don't have any cigarette in stock and I shall recommence whenever the supply resumes.

I would say that cigarette smoking is really an extravagant pastime in Britain as opposed in Taiwan: it costs about £5.50 a pack of twenty cigarettes here while it costs only £10.00 a carton, which contains 200 cigarettes, in my homeland. Therefore, instead of paying exorbitant amounts here, I usually cough out only £6.00 in the airport in Taiwan and bring back a carton of duty-free cigarettes, or just ask a friend or my fiancée to send me some from Taiwan.

Unfortunately, I haven't been back to Taiwan for more than a year, and suddenly both my friend and fiancée refused to send me any more as they claimed that they would no longer aid and abet chronic suicide.

Nevertheless, fortunately, I'm not addicted to smoking; I'm always fine without ciggies in my daily life. I can stop and resume at any time.

Well, although I don't have any cigarettes in stock, I do have some shisha, tobacco mixed with molasses and fruit flavours to be smoked in a hookah, and the gadget for shisha smoking. So I set up my hookah, a precious gift from a very good friend, and had a good puff at the weekend.

I don't think I would bother to smoke shisha as often as I would smoke those blooming cancer sticks, as it's absolutely vexing to assemble the entire hookah. Click here to see the step-by-step instruction and you will know how I can't be asked to do this.


Anyway, the interesting cappuccino-flavoured molasses did offer me a rather good first experience of shisha smoking. I've never thought that apart from nicotine I could sniffed in the piquant taste of the Italian beverage with crema and steamed milk when smoking. Next weekend it'll be cherry or grape, and I'll see how fruits go with tobacco.