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I Start Young by Smokingmom My favorite fantasy is that, instead of being born in 1977, I was born in 1957. Back then, nobody knew the dangers of smoking, and it was considered a glamorous thing to do. When my mom got pregnant in the summer of 1956, her doctor asked her about her smoking. She told him that she smoked two packs of Lucky Strikes per day. He opened a drawer and took out a pack of Winstons and a pack of Salems. He told her to smoke one of these new filtered brands instead, and recommended the Salems in particular because they were a menthol "that will help you breathe more clearly"! So she tried them both. She preferred the Winstons, and my father liked the Salems, so they kept plenty of both around the house. One day in 1960, I was playing in the living room while my parents were entertaining some friends, two other couples. They were having the popular drinks of the day, martinis and "CC and Coke" (Canadian Club and Coca-Cola) and of course, all were smoking. I was three and half, and I found a white crayon in my crayon box and began to pretend it was a cigarette. I looked at my mom, holding her Winston between her two fingers, smoking like a chimney and sipping her martini, wearing bright red lipstick and long red nails, wearing her pearls and looking so glamorous. I began to copy her, putting my crayon between my fingers and putting it to my lips, sucking on it to make my cheeks cave in like hers, then pulling it out and pretending to blow out imaginary smoke. One of the other women noticed me, and said "Look, little Sharon is pretending to smoke - isn't that soooo cute!" The others turned to look at me, and I held my crayon up again and pretended to take a long puff. One of the husbands said "She looks so natural doing that - I bet she grows up to be a smoker just like her Mommy." Everyone laughed and agreed. My dad said "Come over here, Sharon." I went over to him and he said "Hold up your hand." I held up my hand that was holding the crayon, and he took the crayon and replaced it with a freshly-lit Salem! I was so excited! The women said "Oh, she's even cuter with a real cigarette!" and my dad said "Take a puff of it, honey." I held the Salem to my lips and watched my mom as she held her Winston to hers. I sucked as she sucked, then I blew out some smoke. I didn't inhale any, so I didn't cough. One of the women said "Oh, she's so adorable! Take another puff, honey." I took another puff and blew it out, and then a third and a fourth puff. I could taste a little bit of menthol in my mouth, and I liked it, but I especially liked the positive attention I was getting. My dad said "Okay, let me have my cigarette back now." I gave it back to him, then I said "Mommy, can I try your cigarette?" She said "Sure" and put it between my fingers as my dad had. I took three puffs from the Winston, and I inhaled the third one, and coughed. But I noticed that when I coughed, smoke came out my nose, and I was able to fully taste the smoke for the first time. She said "Do that again, and this time just suck in a little bit of smoke, then open your mouth and breathe it down, then try not to cough." I did as she said, intentionally inhaling for the first time. The smoke tasted so good, but my little girl lungs didn't like it, and I almost coughed, but I put my other hand over my mouth and tried really hard not to cough. The need to cough subsided in a few seconds, and I took my hand away and exhaled a smooth cone of smoke. Everybody was amazed, and started saying things like "Wow, she can even inhale! She'll be a smoker in no time!" and "My God, that is the cutest thing I have ever seen? Sharon, come try a puff of my cigarette." I went from adult to adult, taking one or two puffs from each of their cigarettes, and the women especially loved having me stand in front of them and puff on their lipstick-covered filters. I started getting very dizzy, though, and my dad offered me a sip of his CC and Coke. I didn't like the taste of it, and said "Yucky, daddy!" and he told me to go back and play while the grownups talked. About a half hour later it was my bedtime. My mommy came and got me, and I said goodnight to all the guests, then went to give my daddy a goodnight kiss. Before I did, he said "Would you like a puff of my cigarette before bed, honey?" I said "Yes!" and he held the filter to my lips. I took a big puff and inhaled it, and he kissed me goodnight before I could exhale it. I kept my mouth closed and let the smoke come out my nose. I felt so big at that moment - one of the other men said "Good nose exhale!". I followed my mommy up the stairs and into the bathroom. She set me on the counter so I could brush my teeth, holding her Winston in her mouth, dangling it, as she did so. I saw a pack of Salems with four or five left in it and a box of matches on the counter next to the toilet. Daddy always liked to smoke on the toilet, so he kept some cigarettes in the bathroom for that purpose. I said "Mommy, can I have one of Daddy's cigarettes? I want to see myself smoke" and pointed to the mirror. She smiled and said "Sure". She took out one of the Salems and handed it to me. I held it between my fingers and she struck a match, held it to the tip of my cigarette, and said "Okay, suck a little." I sucked, and it was lit. She held the burning match up and I blew it out with smoke. I turned to see myself in the mirror. First I posed with my arm up and the cigarette near my face. Then I put it to my lips and took a puff. I loved the way the tip glowed bright orange when I did that. I pulled the cigarette out and opened my mouth - I could see smoke in there! Then I inhaled through my mouth and saw the ball of smoke disappear down my throat. Mmmm, it was so good! The coolness of the menthol combined with the taste of the tobacco was delicious, and when I exhaled, I could taste it again, and it tasted different coming out than going in, but I liked them both. I saw my mommy smoking in the mirror, and she said "When you start to feel funny or if you think you are going to be sick, then you've had enough smoke." The nicotine went straight to my head, but it gave me a light-headed, wonderful feeling after about three or four puffs. After about ten puffs, though, I had smoked over half of the cigarette and I was feeling very weird, so I said "I guess that's enough, Mommy. Can I smoke some more tomorrow?" She said "Yes, honey, you can. You'll probably be smoking every day from now on, for the rest of your life. Now brush your teeth." I went to sleep that night and dreamed sweet dreams of smoking. The next day, the three of us had breakfast together, and when I was done, I asked Daddy for a cigarette. He gave me one, and gave me a light. That first cigarette of the day was so good! We all sat there together. smoking and talking. Daddy showed me how to double-pump, and I loved it! Daddy said "Are you going to be able to smoke that whole cigarette, Sharon?" I said "I'm going to try really hard!" Mom said "She smoked about two-thirds of one last night before she went to bed. I'm sure that by the end of the day, she'll be able to finish a whole one." In those days, there were no 'light' cigarettes, so my first cigarettes were full-strength, with plenty of nicotine. Daddy said "Tell us how you feel." I was about halfway done with my cigarette, and I said "It makes me feel good, kind of funny in my head. I'm going to smoke it all, though." Daddy said "if you think you are going to get sick, stop for a while. When you first start smoking, sometimes it can make you sick." I said "Is smoking bad for you, Daddy?" He said "Well, like i said, when you first start out, it can make you real dizzy and you can throw up. But after that, it's really not bad for you. After you smoke for many years, you will get a cough when you first wake up in the morning. But if it is bad for you, it takes a really long time for it to do any harm. So don't worry about it - just enjoy your cigarettes." After several more puffs, I finished that cigarette, and Mommy showed me how to put it out in the ashtray. I said "When can I have another one?" They looked at each other and laughed - my Daddy said "She is really going to be a smoker, obviously. Why don't we say that for today, she can have one, what every hour, or every half-hour? What do you think?" My mom thought about it for a minute, then said "I say every hour until lunch, then every half hour after that. We'll see how many she can smoke that way." Daddy said "Okay, that sounds like a plan." He kissed us both and then left for work. My mom told me to go play while she did the breakfast dishes, and that she would call me when I could have another cigarette. I went upstairs, feeling wonderful. I couldn't wait for my next cigarette. From seven to noon, I smoked six cigarettes, then after lunch, from 12:30 until I went to bed at eight, I smoked 15 more! I felt great all day, in a constant nicotine high. And now I was completely addicted. They let me smoke as much as I wanted the next day, and I got up to 25. Within a month, I could smoke 30 per day. They were very impressed, and my January birthday was coming up in another month, and their New Year's Eve party was also going to be my party for my fourth birthday. My mom set a goal of teaching me to chainsmoke for at least four or five hours at a time before the party. So she showed me how to light my next cigarette from the butt of my last, and had me keep a cigarette going all day for that month. By Christmas, I could smoke two packs a day, and I wasn't even four yet! For Christmas, my parents got me the popular toys of the day for little girls - a small toy kitchen setup, with a small toy stove, refrigerator and sink. They also got me a bike with training wheels, a whole carton of Salems, my own Zippo lighter, and several ashtrays, one of which my mom had made in a pottery class. It was big and deep, and had my name painted in the bottom with "Love, Mommy" painted under my name. They also got me a long cigarette holder, which I loved right away. On New Year's Eve, 1960, my parents were planning a cocktail party for about eight couples and themselves, plus me. That day, my mom dressed me in a pageant-type dress with a small bra that she put balls of toilet tissue in to make it look like I had little boobs. She gave me a big Tammy Wynette-style hairdo and than put adult-style makeup on me. She made up my eyes with mascara - I had long lashes already, but the mascara made them look even better, and since I am naturally blonde, it made them much more visible. She put on face makeup, eye shadow, blush, powder, eye liner, and red lipstick. I couldn't believe how old and glamorous I looked when I first saw myself in the mirror. She handed me my long cigarette holder with a Salem in it, and gave me a light. By this point, I could do triple-pumps with ease, and the long holder made it easier to pump a lot, because it cooled the smoke and kept me from feeling the intense heat that the rapidly-burning cigarette put off. She told me that when the party started, I could stay with the grownups, but I shouldn't interrupt their conversations or get in the way, but I could smoke all I wanted to. I was the only kid at the party, and I was a hit. everyone told me how beautiful I was and how grown-up I looked, and they were amazed that I chainsmoked all night. At ten o-clock, they brought out a birthday cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to me, and then I took a huge puff, made a wish (that I could smoke even more) and blew out my four candles with a big cloud of smoke. Several of the people said that they were letting their kids start smoking, and wished that they had brought them. Some of them made 'play dates' with my parents to bring their kids over and let us smoke together. That day, I stayed up until past midnight, smoking over two packs that day, and at midnight, someone gave me a cigar to try, telling me to not inhale. A lot of the adults watched me puff on the cigar, and when I inhaled a puff and exhaled it through my nose, they even clapped! A couple of weeks later it was time for a trip to the doctor to get the polio vaccine and some booster shots. In those days, doctors weren't as specialized as they are today, so we had one family doctor, the same one who had delivered me. There were no restrictions on smoking then, and there were those tall metal ashtray stands in the doctor's office waiting room. There were two other women there besides my mom, and each of them had a kid with them - a five year old girl and a six year old boy. After we sat down, my mommy pulled out her cigarettes and said "Does anyone mind if we smoke?" That was considered the polite thing to do. The other mothers said no, they didn't mind, and each of them pulled out their own cigarettes. My mom lit a Winston and a Salem together, and handed me the Salem. I took it and started puffing eagerly, and the mother of the little girl said "Oh, I'm so glad to see another child smoking. I didn't know if I should let Patsy smoke here in the doctor's office. Are you going to tell the doctor that she smokes?" My mom, said, "Yes, I think so - I want to see what he says about it. So Patsy smokes, too? By the way, I'm Linda, and this is Sharon. She just turned four." The women said "I'm Mary Beth, and this is Patsy. She's five, and yes, she's been smoking for about six months. How long has Sharon been smoking?" My mommy said "She's been smoking about six months, too." The other mother and the little boy were called back to the exam room just then, so we didn't get to talk to them. Mary Beth had given Patsy a cigarette by then, and the nurse smiled when she saw the four of us sitting there smoking. "Like mother, like daughter!" she said. Patsy and I watched each other as we smoked. She was bigger than me, but I could take bigger puffs and do double-pumps, and apparently she hadn't progressed that far. As our moms talked, it turned out that they lived just a block over from us, so they decided to become friends and my mommy invited them over that afternoon. When we got back in the exam room, I lit another cigarette as we waited for old Dr. Conyers to come in. He came in with a Camel dangling from his lips. I had my shirt off already, and I was taking a puff as he walked in. "So, I see you're smoking already! How long has she been smoking, Linda?" Mommy said "About six months. I wanted to ask you about it and make sure it's okay for her to be smoking already. I started when I was six, and I'm fine." He listened to my lungs and said "Yes, I don't hear anything wrong. Quite a few of my little patients smoke. What I usually see is that their lungs start to make more phlegm after a while, and some of them do seem to get colds more often, but that's all. I did have one little boy who started on cigars when he was three, and he developed asthma when he was ten. I had him switch to menthol cigarettes and it cleared right up. How much is she smoking?" Mommy said "Well, she can smoke up to two packs a day? Is that too much?" He drew on his Camel and said "Well, she sounds fine to me. Just keep her under four or five packs a day for the next few years and she'll be fine." and they both laughed. Then it was time for my shots. He told me to take a really big puff and hold it, then he stuck me. I exhaled, but it really didn't hurt too bad, so I didn't cry. He said "You came through that just fine. What a big girl you're getting to be! Do you like those cigarettes?" I said "Yes, sir, I love them. I need another one." My mom handed me another one and I lit it from the butt, so the doctor actually saw me chaining. He said "It sure looks like you love it. You two take care, and I'll see you again in six months and I'll listen to your chest again and see how you're doing." He looked at my mommy and said "Let her smoke all she can for the next six months - it will be interesting to see what effect it has on her. If she gets a cold or a bad cough, bring her back in." Mommy said "Okay, doctor, I will. And thank you! Bye now!" and he left. That afternoon, Mary Beth and Patsy came over to our house. Patsy and I became friends right away. We went up to my room and smoked our heads off, having contests. We tried seeing who could take the biggest puff (me), who could hold their smoke in their lungs the longest (her) and who could keep a constant pump going the longest (me again, using my cigarette holder I smoked a whole cigarette without a break by pumping). She became my best friend, and almost every week one of us would spend the night with the other, and we often walked with our moms to a park that was in between our houses, where we would swing and seesaw, smoking while we did it! My mommy told my daddy what the doctor had said about letting me smoke as much as I could, so they did. They encouraged me to keep a cigarette going all the time, to take bigger puffs, to pump more, and to puff more often so that I would smoke more cigarettes per day. Over those next six months, my smoking increased to three packs a day or more. My next trip to the doctor was uneventful. Once again I chainsmoked the whole time I was there, and he listened to my lungs and declared me healthy. He was amazed that at four and a half I was smoking three packs a day, but he said I was fine and could keep it up. He gave my mommy a bottle of "iron syrup" and a bottle of cough syrup. The iron was supposed to keep my blood in good shape, and the cough syrup was just in case I ever needed it. And I was actually healthy. I played hard, ran, rode my bicycle (which had a cute basket on the front where I carried my cigarettes and Zippo) and did all the things normal little girls did. In those days there was no formal kindergartens, but some churches ran some, but few kids went, so I didn't have to start school until I was six. Patsy was almost seven, but since her birthday was in November, she and I were going to be in first grade together. Lucky for us, my daddy was the principal of the local elementary school, which was so close by that Patsy and I could ride our bicycles to school. Two years before I started school, my daddy had started a "smoking lounge" in the school. We lived in North Carolina back then, right in tobacco country, so a lot of the rural kids smoked, and many in the cities did, too. Daddy sent out the school rule book two weeks before school started, plus a list of the school fees, lunch prices, and dress code. He also included a smoking permission slip that parents had to sign before their kids could use the smoking lounge. It said: "The school provides a smoking lounge located next to the principal's office. Those children who are allowed to smoke at home may use the lounge only if this permission slip is signed by a parent. Regular school hours are from 8am until 2:30pm, and those students who have permission may take ten minute smoking breaks at 9:30am and 1:30pm. You may also check the boxes below to allow your child to take his or her lunch in the smoking lounge and/or take their recess there. Each smoking child will have a cubbyhole to keep their smoking materials; matches, lighters, etc. Smoking is not allowed in the rest rooms or anywhere on school property except the smoking lounge. Students from all grades are eligible to participate with their parents' permission. ____ Yes, my child can use the smoking lounge at 9:30am and 1:30pm. ____ Yes, my child may take his or her lunch in the smoking lounge. ____ Yes, my child can take his or her recess in the smoking lounge. Signed, ___________________ Date: ______________" And so the policy was in effect for two years before I got there. By the time I was ready to start school, I was six and a half and could smoke four packs a day, and my best friend Patsy could also. Naturally, we had permission on all three lines of the form. On my 9:30 break, I would smoke at least four cigarettes, then during the lunch period I could often smoke ten more, another ten during recess, and another four at 1:30. Patsy and I would light up and chainsmoke while we rode our bikes back to my house every afternoon, so school didn't slow our cigarette consumption much, if any. We made a lot of new friends in the smoking lounge. There were three other first-graders in there, two boys and one girl. None of them could smoke like Patsy and me, though. There were eight second-graders, and more and more as the grade level went up, to 26 sixth-graders, so there were more than sixty of us allowed to use the smoking lounge. Patsy and I were the heaviest smokers except for a girl in the fifth grade and two boys and two girls in the sixth grade. The girl who was in the fifth grade was named Diane, and she said that she lived on a tobacco farm and that she had smoked her whole life, since she was a baby. She smoked strong unfiltered cigarettes, often two at a time, and said she smoked six packs a day. Her voice was very raspy and low - you had to be close to her to understand what she was saying. She had won the "Youngest Smoker" contest at the county fair (they really had these up until 1977!) five years in a row, from age ten months to almost five. We lost track of her after she left our school for junior high, but we heard she got leukemia and died when she was only 14. Elementary school was great. In 1964, when we were in the third grade, they made that big announcement that smoking causes lung cancer. Everyone worried about it for a while, then decided it was all BS and kept on smoking. I continued to be healthy as a horse, and Patsy and I continued to be adorable little chainsmokers. The junior high school and high school had smoking areas outside, like big patios, so we went there a lot. We both had smoking boyfriends, too. I had James, and Patsy had Steven. But something terrible happened when we were seniors in high school. One day, we were in the smoking area, each of us smoking two cigarettes at once, when suddenly Patsy just fell over. Her face turned blue, and somebody gave her mouth-to-mouth, and she started breathing again, but she had to go to the hospital, where it was determined that she had had a heart attack, at age 17! Her doctors told her she must quit smoking, and she did, for a while, but started back a few months later. At 21, she had another heart attack in college and died, and I lost my best friend (well, my best human friend - my cigarettes were always my real best friend). In college, I met a wonderful man named Brian, and we fell in love. He was a moderate smoker, about two packs a day, but he was the first guy I had ever dated who told me that my smoking turned him on. In college, I could of course smoke as much as I wanted, which got me up to five packs per day. Brian not only didn't mind, he loved it. He also introduced me to weed, which I really enjoyed, and smoking weed and coughing from smoking it seemed to clear my lungs up somewhat. I was a business major, and Brian was a computer science major. We both graduated in 1979, and got married two months later. For the first four years, we both worked and saved our money, planning to buy a house. But in 1983, Brian heard of a software company in Seattle that he felt sure was going to make it big. So we invested all our savings in the company, and that company turned out to be Microsoft. Needless to say, after the company went public, we were rich beyond our wildest dreams. Every time the stock would split, we would sell half of our holdings, bank the money, and keep our original number of shares. So, we were able to retire in 1987, at 30 years old! Right after this, I became pregnant with twin girls. My doctor was adamant that I must quit smoking, but there was no way. I did cut down to three packs a day for a while, but couldn't maintain such a low level without severe headaches and nervousness. So I smoked throughout my whole pregnancy. If I went for even ten minutes without a cigarette, the babies would kick wildly, and only by smoking could I calm them down. Brian and I discussed the fact that the babies would be born addicted to nicotine, and we also talked about the possibility of letting them smoke at an early age. I seemed to have gotten a good set of genes, as my parents were still alive and smoking, two of my grandparents were still alive and smoking, and I had lost my last great-grandparent (my mother's grandmother) when I was in college and she was 90, and even she didn't die from smoking - she fell down a flight of stairs. Similarly, Brian had good genes, so we felt okay about my smoking while pregnant and about our babies' future. Sarah and Samantha were born in 1989, both big and healthy, especially big for twins. During the last month of my pregnancy, I was so big I was miserable, and could do nothing but lay around and chainsmoke. They were both beautiful, and we took care of them together, since Brian and I were both rich and retired already. I would smoke while I breastfed them, and the smoke always seemed to sooth them. If they woke up crying and cranky, we could hold them while we smoked, bathing them in secondhand smoke, and they would calm down and go right to sleep. Even so, we managed to keep control of ourselves and not try to get them to smoke until they were older. When they turned a year old, we started giving them smoky kisses and allowing them to breath smoke directly from our mouths. They seemed to really like this, and as they learned to crawl and then to walk, they would come up to us whenever we were smoking and want a kiss. Finally, when they were 18 month-old toddlers, one day Brian held Sarah and I held Samantha, and at the same time we held our cigarettes to their lips and gave them their first puffs. They coughed a little on their first several puffs, and we didn't force the issue, but simply offered them the opportunity to take a puff several times a day. By the time they were two years old, they could puff and inhale pretty well, and by three, they were holding their own cigarettes and smoking five or six cigarettes per day. By the age of five, they were both pack-a-day smokers! Now they are 16, and both of them smoke at least three packs a day, and they are very healthy. I'm now 48, and have over 150 pack-years in me! My lungs are in pretty bad shape, but I still have about forty percent normal lung capacity. With our money, we are funding research at a private facility in Europe to use stem cells and pieces of my own lung tissue to try and grow me a new set of lungs. The researchers have cloned a tiny pair using a chimp, and they implanted a piece of the tissue under my skin to see if my body would reject it. It has been six months, and there has been no rejection. They tell us that should be able to give me a set of child-sized lungs in about two more years, so I am free to smoke this pair to death, and I'm trying! When I was forty, I got stung by a bee and had a severe allergic reaction to it, and they had to perform an emergency tracheotomy to save my life. I woke up with a tube going into my throat. Brian and I discussed it (I couldn't talk, I had to write on a pad of paper), and with our money, we convinced a surgeon to permanently implant a small steel plate in my trachea at the site of the tracheotomy, with a round hole and a small removable cover in case I should ever have another such emergency. So they did, and now I have a nice hole in my throat that I can smoke through! I can talk and breathe and smoke normally with my mouth and nose, but I had Brian make me several adapters to plug into my throat hole. One holds cigars, and I have several others that can hold from one to seven cigarettes at once. I use my hole pretty often now that I know I will be getting new lungs in the future. I can light a cigar with my mouth, then slide the cover open over the hole, and insert the cigar holder. Then I just take deep, full-lung breaths, and I get a nicotine rush just like I did when I was four! I can't taste the smoke coming in, but I can enjoy the rich taste as I exhale thick clouds through my mouth and nose. Both my girls are jealous of it, but they know that one of these days they will have one, too. I often smoke with my mouth at the same time that I am smoking through my throat hole. Brian and I love to make love while I do this. We have a tube that I can connect to my hole and connect the other end to a cigar or multi-cigarette holder. The cigar or cigarettes lie safely on the ashtray that my mother made me so many years ago, and we kiss and I exhale my thick smoke into him as we make love. These days, I am smoking seven packs a day at least, plus several big cigars. Life is wonderful, and so is smoking! |
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