Muses, Taxes & Cigarettes

Where do I begin? Well, right now I'm writing this because Ben said I should and Ben often has good ideas and she said she would be my muse, whatever that might be. I rather think she just wants to be amused. So dedication over, what's on my mind?

Right now I'm thinking I should have a cup of coffee on the table beside me, instead of a cold cup of team, actually there is only about a mouthful left and its freezing. Also, I should be sitting in a warm climate instead of a damp island.  But most of all, I should have a cigarette in my hand right now.

Just short over two weeks ago we had a budget, the most recent in a series of austerity budgets that makes Greece look positively attractive.  The government as usual, took money from me.  I don't really mind that much, a country needs money to function, but it does irritate me.

This time I decided to strike back and introduce my own budget.  I figured out that if I could quit smoking, I would make up for the extra taxes and come out a few quid ahead.  Also, the government would have to forego the taxes they would have collected on the ciggies.

I sometimes worry about depriving the government of income, they might decide to cut pensions for the elderly, reduce children's allowances or reduce carer's allowances.  I especially hate when they do this and don't cut spending where they should.  Which is on Public Service Pensions and Payroll.  You only have to look at the state of the country to know that their wages were never justly earned.

We hear enough about the pain suffered by them, bugger them.

So that is the impact of cigarette withdrawal symptoms . . .  not exactly.  But giving up smoking does funny things to you.  All the books and articles on giving up talk or write about how your breathing will return to normal, your heart will get younger, you will become irresistibly attractive to nubile young women and you will develop the physique of a greek god.  All well and good if it were true.  But right now, I'd chew the right arm off a nubile young woman for a smoke.

The reality is that smoking gets you in so many ways.  I only got breathless when I tried to run, which I hardly ever did, what do I have a car for?  My heart works well enough and I could get hit by lightening in the morning, so why worry about the future?

I might have quit smoking, but smoking hasn't quit me.  It grabs me round the troth and squeezes until my ears pop.  It grabs my heart and makes it flutter like a butterfly.  Then it massages it and makes it thump.  Every now and again it makes me stop breathing, then I need to take a big deep breath and that triggers a fit of yawning.

So I've quit smoking and smoking is getting back at me like a jilted girlfriend.  Right, so I've got to fight back?  But you don't hit girls and my relationship with smoking was like a boy girl relationship?  Nope, that's not how it was.  I never chucked a girl out the window of a speeding car, or ground one into the pavement. it is different.

What do non smokers do when they are bored?

What do non smokers do when they want time to think?

What do non smokers do to delay an uncomfortable decision?

These were the three most common triggers of smoking for me when I really thought about when I smoked.  I also smoked after rows with my wife, but that might account for one in a thousand cigarettes, but boy did I really suck on those cigarettes, I might even need a second one to regain control of myself.

Yeuck!  That tea is well past its sell by date.  Must make a fresh cup of my new coffee.