To smoke or not to smoke...
Dylan has tried smoking and he likes it. Is it just a phase, or should Candice be worried about it?
Wednesday
So a couple weeks ago Dylan announced he’d like to try smoking. He’d called me at work to say so. And I’d promptly gone into parental overdrive, so sure this was the beginning of the end. How did I not see this coming? He’d been talking about boys with broken voices and facial hair in awed tones. How they played ping pong and smoked cigarettes after school. Only they call it “skyf”, he added. Note how they leave that out of the school pamphlets.
By the time I arrived home I’d convinced myself there’d be a testosterone charged teenager at the door. And was almost surprised to find my sweet, gentle son. Albeit in a black fedora.
“What’s with the hat?” I asked.
“For my cigarette,” he said. In a tone that suggested I was daft to ask.
Riding on the confidence of my older brother, I’d brought home a Marlboro for Dylan to try. “Teach him to inhale deeply before he even lights it. He’ll cough so much it’s sure to put him off.” That was the plan.
Only I found myself not liking the plan at all, once I was in it. Passing a cigarette to my 13 year old, virgin-lunged child felt wrong on so many levels. Hypocritical levels, but lets not concentrate on that. What’s the alternative, my head said, that he try anyway and just not tell you? That his friends teach him to inhale a little at a time and he likes it? But if I say no, maybe he won’t try at all! my heart cried. And my head laughed loudly.
So we did the whole suck on pencil, now try cigarette thing and I waited for the Big Coughing Fit Paul had promised. Only it didn’t happen. A little splutter, a mad grin and “this is great!” he declares. Plan screeches to a stop and I change tactics.
“I really don’t want you to do this,” I begin. And list all the cancers I can think of, with a bit of “you’re only 13, if you start now you could be dead by 20” thrown in. He looks surprised and tells me he doesn’t need to inhale. He likes the smoke curling from his mouth. And smoke rings. And it suits his new look. Specifically Johnny Depp as John Dillinger in Public Enemies (and the Fedora penny drops).
So I taught him to fake-inhale, and he got pretty good at it. Learned to blow a mean smoke ring too. It’s been two weeks now. The first few nights he smoked every evening (we agreed on one a night after I went on a bit about tongue cancer). Then he went a night or two without asking. And now the last four evenings, he hasn’t mentioned it at all. Dare I hope he’s lost interest? I’d ask but I’m pretending not to notice.
Could be worse, Paul said when I told him about the whole John Dillinger phase. Could’ve ended up at the shooting range.
Yip. There’s that.
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