• It’s the damnest thing. I just checked the refrigerator for the 30th time tonight and there’s still nothing delicious in there. I know it’s the same fridge in the same spot and that there is no such thing as the Kitchen Fairy. But every time I open it up, I hope in an abstract way to find something new in there. Maybe a giant pepperoni pizza, inexplicably steaming and piping hot even though it sits in an icebox.* Maybe a plump turkey, all golden brown and awaiting the blade like the one that graces the table on Thanksgiving day. Perhaps I might find a peanut buster parfait in there, heavy on the peanut, light on the buster. But I know and you know that magic never occurs inside a refrigerator no matter how many chances you give it.

* Noboby uses the term icebox anymore, either. Why not, I wonder? Two syllables versus five and as a society, we went with the longer one?

• The neverending hunt for food miracles is just one of the phenomena I’ve experienced since I’ve been trying to quit smoking. Another is the unmanageable hatred I feel to any man, woman or cartoon character I see smoking a cigarette on the television or in the real world. I mean, I really hate them, want them to swallow that butt whole and set their guts on fire. I didn’t think that many people lit up on television anymore, but you see it all the time if you’re trying to eschew the things. Don’t ever watch Becker if you’re trying to go without.

• I’ve also noticed that strange things fill me with longing. A lighter plucked from a junk drawer; an old photograph where a past version of me is frozen in time with an eternal smoke dangling from the lips; that old baseball hat I wore to the Royals game in Boston because I smoked so much then, the bill of it still smells like nicotine. I might light that goddamn hat on fire and suck in the fumes before I’m done.

• I shouldn’t sit here and tell you that I’m off the smokes. I still sneak over to a store called Florian’s where you can by them individually. I sneak over way more than I should. I fork over a quarter apiece for three of them and then try to make them last all night. I haven’t quit smoking, I’ve only quit doing it the easy way.

• Clinically, it’s tougher to give up nicotine then heroin, did you know that? Look it up if you don’t believe me, you pink-lunged bastard. And while you’re at it, read “Quitters Incorporated,” by Stephen King. It’s in the Night Shift collection.

• I used to work for a man who suffered a couple minor heart attacks after a life of hard work and Viceroys. The dude really had to give it up, so he drove himself to his camp at Moosehead Lake, smoking his last butt on the way. No store for miles. No neighbors to beg smokes from. It should have been the perfect cure. But before the first day was over, the poor slob was digging through last year’s garbage bags, clawing at lobster tails and rotting lettuce for tiny, snubbed out butts he could suck on. And when those delicious treats were gone, he jumped into his boat, found a camp with a smoker in residence and paid the dude a hundred dollars for a pack of cigs.

• My very top irritation about this whole process is the people who, when you explain to them how tough a time you’re having, say: “Well, you really have to want to quit.” Thank you, genius. Clearly, I’ve been going about this the wrong way. I should take off the “I HEART cigarettes” T-shirt and poke a hole in the inflatable cigarette sex doll before I give it another try.

• I started smoking when I was 13 or 14. Most people I ask started around the same time. You’ll always find that old timer who swears he started smoking at 6. I never know whether or not to believe him. I also met a man who started when he was 26. I mean, 26? Was it peer pressure? Did the other kids at the shoe shop double dog dare you to light up and you didn’t want to back down because they would have called you a chicken and made bok bok noises?

•  AA is regarded as one of the most effective forms of therapy for the reformed drinker. A group of them will sit around and talk over their drinking histories, the things they loss and their efforts to stay sober. It works for millions. Such a thing wouldn’t work as a means to stay off smokes, though. Talking about it fuels the craving as much as seeing some asshole on the late night news puffing a butt. You’d have a group of struggling smokers sitting around a church basement reciting the lords prayer and smoking carpet fibers. Brother, they’d trash the place. I’ve been writing for ten minutes about all of this and I want one more than ever. If I had a trash bag full of lobster claws and cigarette butts, I’d be neck deep in it right now.

• The math is staggering. I smoked a pack and a half a day. Conservatively, I factor that at six bucks spent each day on cigarettes. That’s $180 a month. If I go to the calculator that’s $2,190 a year. Is it any wonder I’m consoling myself with the notion that if I give the vile things up, I can get this? I just went back to the calculator. Just 665 days worth of smoking will pay for that mean machine.

* Remember when the calculator was considered a computer accessory? So was Solitaire.

• Here’s what I’m using to help combat cravings: this and this. If these fail to get me through, I’m thinking of trying this.

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