It’s Not The Nicotine That’s Addictive; It’s All The Rituals

I tell everyone that I smoked my last cigarette in the back seat of a taxicab on the island of Ambon in central Indonesia. It was one of those awful half-clove, half-tobacco things, thick as my little finger and unfiltered. It was early morning and the taxi was going very fast over very rough roads. Nervous, I inhaled deeply.

I coughed for half an hour. I choked and sputtered and emitted fluids. My shoulders ached from convulsing; my head throbbed; my eyes burned. It was a total body experience; it may even have been a wake-up call.

But the truth is, I’m not sure whether that was my last cigarette. I was quitting a lot of things during that time; cigarettes just sort of got thrown in the mix. I didn’t really notice that I’d really quit - like everyone, I had unreally quit on numerous occasions - until after it was over.

It’s a good last cigarette story, though. And it was certainly my last cigarette for a while; I was gasping at the mere memory for weeks afterward.

I don’t miss smoking. I don’t miss spending all that money; I don’t miss the pinholes in my shirts from dropped embers; I don’t miss dirty ashtrays; I don’t miss two weeks of sore throats with every cold. And I’d certainly hate to be a smoker now, when you have to stand around in front of public buildings like a Bulgarian pensioner waiting for the Ministry of Disbursements to open.

But I do miss the rituals.

I liked opening cigarette packs, pulling the flap of aluminum foil and ripping it 270 degrees around the square at one side of the tax stamp. I liked turning the pack over and expertly tapping the stamp against the outside edge of the right forefinger, causing one or two cigarettes to pop out a few inches.

Then I’d turn the pack over, put the end of the most prominent cigarette in my mouth, close my lips over it and pull it out of the pack - more precisely, pull the pack away so the one cigarette remained in my mouth.

I did that very well. It may have been the most skillful physical maneuver I ever perfected.

I liked lighters. I had an elderly Zippo forever, and I sometimes thought that I would pass it on to my children and tell them anecdotes about the scrapes we’d been through together: “That dent there is from the popular uprising in Minsk; I guess you could say this lighter saved my life.”

It’s the romantic gift of lung cancer; I understand that. Still, the Zippo is a fine piece of design.

I tried to blow smoke rings, and a few times I almost did. I could let smoke dribble out of my mouth and then suck it up through my nose, a kind of reverse cascade of vapor that looked impossibly cool. I know how it looked; I did it enough times in front of the mirror.

I even loved flicking cigarettes butts for distance. Yes, it’s littering as a competitive sport; it’s a recreation that never goes out of fashion.

I wish someone would invent a personal habit that is both healthy and heavy with ritual. Opening a bottle of mineral water is not a stylish event, although if we all carried our own openers it might be more fun. And you can’t let mineral water dribble out your mouth and then suck it up through your nose - I mean, you can, but it’s not a great way to get girls.

Nail files have possibilities. Certainly, there would be leavings, but they would not be toxic. Secondhand clippings: not a problem.

Toothpicks might work, although the national adoption of the Optional Dentifrice Habit would mean that you’d be gazing at rather too many tongues in the course of a sophisticated social evening.

Origami? Would that work? Can we get a grant to study it?