The Battle

Sometimes the universe conspires to help you. No, seriously, it does. I know, right? I never would have believed it either, until it happened to me.

Yesterday was The Anniversary. My sister was here, we got our tattoos (honestly? I 'like' mine, but I don't 'love it' yet), the kids kept us busy, I never got a moment's peace to have a big, wrenching, ugly cry over my mom. So I went to bed and read and then the Princess was up and kept us up to 2:30-ish and then finally I got to sleep. When I woke up at the crack o' 9:30am today, the house was silent. Hot Stuff had run to town and my sister had taken the two big kids to the park. Little Dude was sleeping in bed with me. ("Oh there's a baby here!! How'd you get here, baby?")

Sidenote: I am on the patch to help me quit smoking, and I wear it for 24 hours. It is giving me the most vivid dreams (unfortunately, not dirty ones) and I'm waking up a lot at night.

So anyways. I usually change my patch around 8 or 9am; apparently it only holds medication for 24 hrs.

Aaaanyways, I get up at 9:30 and damn. it. I need a smoke in the worst way. So I come downstairs and go immediately to the freezer where Hot Stuff keeps his carton of cigs. I am in the process of reaching in for a pack when Hot Stuff pulls in the driveway.

Thank you, Universe, that was close. I tell Hot Stuff and he puts the carton in his truck.

All day I have battled the urge to smoke. The only time I wasn't thinking about smoking, or talking myself into smoking, or talking myself out of smoking, was when I slept for two hours this afternoon.

After I woke up from my nap, I realized that I was actually wearing my last patch and needed to run to town to get more. So, (oh yes, the irony) (boy I sure hope I used that word in the proper context) I decided I was going to sneak a smoke and smoke it on the way into town because then nooooobody would know, except me. When I was a smoker, we had lighters all over this house. Any surface that a small monkey-child could not reach was guaranteed to have a lighter on it.

Thank you, Universe, for hiding all the lighters on me. Because I looked. I haven't worked that hard in years, and still nothing. I checked every drawer, every winter coat pocket, every shelf, every place I could covertly check without making Hot Stuff suspicious. Big. Fat. Nothing.

Well, I'm still undeterred. I can stop at the gas station and grab a pack of free matches, so I'll just grab a cig out of Hot Stuff's pack that he so conveniently left by the front door before I go to town.

"Bye, honey, won't be long, do you need anything?" I sweetly ask, grabbing the pack of smokes by the front door.

"Yeah, get me a banana split. No pineapple. Extra chocolate instead," he yells back as I flip open the pack, anticipation making my fingers itch.

Thank you, Universe, for the empty pack of cigs by the front door. Well played, sir. Well played.