It’s Not Easy Being Green

I have not smoked for 13 years. It took a lot of failed attempts to finally quit because I thoroughly enjoyed smoking back in the day. Ok, I loved it. THERE I SAID IT.

I knew that the last time I quit was my last time to quit. I understood in my gut that if a lit cigarette ever found its way in my mouth again, it would never leave.

So we broke up, cigarettes and me.

The last and final time I quit, I left an open pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and told myself I could have had one any time I wanted. They are right there. Hope that’s convenient. Don’t be shy.

Because, really, just don’t tell me *no*. That’s always what made it so difficult before. I couldn’t so I had to.

That was the last time I quit.

Why don’t I tell you about the first time I quit.

I was in 7th grade at West Junior High in Waterloo, Iowa standing in the hazy, smoke filled girl’s bathroom, trying so desperately to not feel all the awkwardness that puberty had dropped on my door that year. Someone passed me a cigarette. I stared at it, thinking how adult my hand suddenly looked holding it. I liked it.

From that point on, smoking was a group activity with my friends. We seemed to only be able to smoke in a flock. We became a roving teenage cloud of smoke.

We were not picky–we had no brand.  We would smoke anything but an Eve–on principle.  “Eve-Finally a cigarette that’s as pretty as you are.”  Puhleeze. Even we weren’t buying it.

I went to confirmation class every Wednesday night at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. All my friends went to this church and our class had been together going on 2 years. We were a big Lutheran Missouri Synod GANG. Watch out. We will so get Protestant and reform all over your ass.

By grace alone, bitches. Oh yea.

We had a short break during class and we would have the Great Missouri Synod Lutheran Smoke Off—just us gals. We would find some underused bathroom and smoke more cigarettes than 6-8 girls should in the 10 minutes break. This Wednesday was different though. Our usual smoking spots were not available. We ended up in this bathroom close to where the little kids hung out. Since we’d gone from spot to spot in vain, we’d lost valuable smoking time. We had to smoke our handful of cigarettes in record time.

This made us loud.

And, regrettably, we created an enormous amount of smoke. We discovered after our exit that some of the little kids thought there was a fire in the bathroom.  A big, loud, teenage fire. Lutheran vandals that their parents had warned them about.

After our confirmation class, our little smoking section was asked to stay for a few minutes by our Associate Pastor.

Let me tell you a little about him. He was young and 70’s hot—mustache, wavy brown hair down to his shoulders, he played the guitar, he wore jeans. We all had a crush on him. But there was one detail that kind of spoiled the whole picture for us.

He talked like Kermit the frog.

Not a little bit but 100 percent like Kermit the frog. It was just how he spoke. I remember the first time we saw him—we were at church and we all thought *Holy Crap, (cuz it was church that’s why it was holy) who’s the hottie?! * And then he spoke.

Everyone’s crush on him was greatly subdued.

I should tell you why he talked like Kermit. It was something he would explain to everyone the first time he would be introduced.

You see, he was a cautionary tale. He had surgery on his vocal chords to have growths removed years before all because…say it with me…HE HAD BEEN A SMOKER.

So Pastor UsedToBeASmokerUntilTheThroatSurgery sits us all down and tells us again about his throat surgery due to smoking– in his best Kermit voice– giving us all a very serious stare. He told us if we all promised to never smoke again, he would not tell our folks.

We all did promise. He never told our folks.

And just as we had smoked, we moved as a mob and 16 hands threw the cigarettes away.

As far as I know, I may have been the only girl in our group who took up with cigarettes again but that didn’t happen for many years after. Pretty good odds.

I wonder if our Pastor ever had any *Why Me?* moments about his surgery. I mean, he was H-O-T if he did not speak. Honestly, if he hadn’t made his request for us to stop smoking in his froggy voice, we probably wouldn’t have stopped.

It’s funny how things work out.