Last week, I talked about a time when I put my glasses on a dog, and we all had a good laugh about it until the dog took off wearing my glasses. I wish I had the presence of mind to stick a cigarette in the dog’s mouth. Remembering the dog (who’s almost certainly dead by now, because this was 50 years ago), it would have looked really funny.
I started smoking when I was about 13 and was smoking heavily by the time I was 15. It is a filthy, nasty habit, don’t get me wrong, but it was also quite enjoyable, and there are days that I honestly miss it. I was able to quit painlessly after about 30 years. Just put it up one day and said "that’s enough" and never looked back.
But I still miss it. I also miss the days when they were 50 cents a pack and $5 for a carton, because everything was cheaper then.
Christine runs Simply 6 Minutes every week. She has all the rules at her place.
The Sound of One Hand Typing 
Hubby and I are both ex smokers, having given up just before we got married (literally) in 1991. Ciggies were £1.49 a pack for twenty, now they are nearly a tenner, if not more. We couldn’t afford to smoke even if we wanted to now.
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That’s like Mom. I think when she died (from cancer, not lung) she was paying $50 a carton. Now I think a carton is up over $100. Remember, tobacco is a cash crop here and the government subsidizes it. The federal government and state governments get tax revenue from it, so they pay the farmers to grow it, while at the same time run aggressive anti-smoking campaigns. If that doesn’t make sense, welcome to the club.
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The government get a substantial lump in taxation, and give up campaigns are all over the place.
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Reblogged this on Stine Writing and commented:
Lucky to let go of a hard habit!
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I remember when they were only $1.99 a pack and we would laugh about getting the penny back. We all have our vices so I don’t like to make assumptions about why people still smoke, since everyone knows it is deadly. I just don’t understand, well I do but…, I don’t understand why there has to be so many bad chemicals in a cigarette knowing that people want to smoke. Can’t they do some healthy version? Vegan or plant-based…Lol.
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If I remember correctly, there were a couple of brands of cigarettes that were pure tobacco with no additives. I think Nat Sherman’s Cigarettellos was one brand. They were about twice what a regular pack of cigarettes cost, but they had no additives or other crap in them. It was kind of like smoking a cigar, because they wouldn’t stay burning. I can’t imagine they were that much better health-wise, but they were a good smoke nonetheless…
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So lucky that you were just able to drop the habit! My parents quit when I was too young to remember it — here’s hoping it was that easy for them, too.
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Some people really go through a hell of a time trying to quit. They spend more money on stop-smoking aids than they did on cigarettes. I consider myself lucky. Mom didn’t quit until a few months befiore she died. Oddly enough, the cancer they found in her lungs wasn’t lung cancer, it was metastases from somewhere else that they couldn’t figure out until after she died…
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Having never smoked I just looked up the price of cigarettes. No idea what I am comparing to, so a packet of 30 costs $38 AUD (which is $28 USD).
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Here, they’re 3 packs of 20 for $20. They used to be three packs for $5. They’re cheap here because they grow quite a bit of tobacco here. Just to show the craziness here, the government subsidizes tobacco farmers and taxes smokers…
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The dog photo is funny and who hasn’t put glasses on their dog? Smokes in Canada…one pack is average $15. A carton, I think, is around $85. I know it costs ver $400 per month here. I never smoked but both my parents did.
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$15 a pack? Wow.
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Smoking is enjoyable till it starts enjoying you.
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True…
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🙏🏼
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