Smoking

            Cigarettes have existed in the history of mankind since the historical days. Smoking in the early 1900s was seen as healthful and invigorating. Although people are aware of the health risks involved in smoking, many still smoke. When I was fourteen years old, my best friend Alice and I thought that we would look more grown up if we started smoking. My father smoked, so we devised a plan for me to steal his cigarettes, and then Alice and I would meet behind Rensselaer Middle high School to smoke. We thought smoking would make us more popular with the older kids who hung out there. The next morning I sneaked into my parent's room and stole a pack of Marlboro light cigarettes from her carton, and a pack of matches from the desk drawer. I hurried out the door to school with the overwhelming fear my father would catch me before I could get there. I ran three whole blocks before I met up with Alice. I proudly showed her my stolen pack of cigarettes, and she was impressed with my story of how I was able to slip the smokes out of the house. By her reaction, I just knew I was becoming more popular already. Alice and I walked to the back of our school where the tough kids hung out and opened the pack of cigarettes. We each took one cigarette and lit it up. It was the nastiest thing I had ever tasted! I tried to inhale the smoke as I had seen my father do, but instead of breathing a long sigh of satisfaction, I thought I would cough up a lung. I hated it! For some unexplainable reason, I kept going back behind school and lighting one up.
             Fourteen years later I am still smoking. I cannot go a day without a cigarette; I am addicted. I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is smoke a cigarette. I always smell like smoke. I can chew all the peppermint I want, but the smell is still there. My belief that smoking would make me look older was not altogether wrong. Smoking has caused wrinkles on my face and my fingernails to yellow.