Looking Back

Looking Back When I was a Smoker!
This was written to a friend just before I dropped a 68 year smoking habit when the doctor told me to quit that day or he would no longer attend to my medical needs. Pretty blunt but it worked as I quit that day: November 15th, 2006.
GAWD! The tenth month of this 2006 is almost gone ! Tempus Fugit ! Amen! And nothing stops those dam hands on the clock from spinning. Even pulling the plug, removing the batteries and stopping the pendulum has no affect as time just marches on.
The mistakes made yesterday glare back at me on that page of life and I wonder how in hell I could have been so stupid. Even an error made one minute ago becomes “history” and unchangeable and stamped in stone.
Trapped in routine, each day begins the same throwing water in my face and shaking the brain awake to go to the kitchen, flip on the coffee pot, light a ciggie and leave a smoke trail down the carport to pick up the morning paper off the driveway, walk back through my smoke screen to the porch and dissect the paper throwing out the unessential ads, home and car sales pitches that there is only 72 hours left on the sale of the year to put your butt behind the wheel of the fanciest creation that can go zero to 60 in 4 seconds and speeds that would give you nothing but tickets for breaking the laws of any road in the world except in Germany. When do you need zero to 60 and who in their right mind wants to go 225 MPH unless you are on a circular track with advertisements plastered all over your car while wearing a crash helmet and the vehicle is equipped with roll bars.
Once dissected, the computer is activated, the cat has been fed and patted and I return to the table to have a cup of coffee and read the paper from front page headlines to comics that sits there before me. To vary a mundane existence I sometimes begin with the headlines, but more often than not, I begin with the comics feeling I should begin each day with at least a good laugh which rarely is found on the front page. But: actually i check the lottery numbers to see if my name is removed from the poverty list! (Crap! Missed every number by one digit! must find a part time job so I can afford to buy more tickets and increase my chances!) And because life goes on, the daily pill regimen is begun by taking my blood pressure pill and the first of 2 zinc tablets that are required to help my vision. Then the mandatory bowl of multigrain Cherrios with honey to lower cholesterol followed by nine vitamins and supplements and an 81 Mg aspirin for the heart.
The coffee is gone! The paper is history! But there are still some cigarets left, so out on the porch I sit and pollute the air before heading for the computer and Check out 11 forwarded items that show they have been all over the country twice and 6 pieces of worthless crap from companies I do not know and wonder how in hell they got my address and 2 items stating if I don’t forward them I am an Antichrist or don’t believe in God threatening that I will have 7 years bad luck if I don’t follow directions. Thank Heaven for channel changing remote devices and the “DELETE” key on computers.
And it isn’t even 8:30 AM yet.
Think I’ll lay down and take a nap. The cat is having one, so why can’t I?
I’ll worry about lunch when I wake up.
Have a good day