11.26.7
Day 1
A couple of days ago, I had planned to sit down to write something about Thanksgiving and how much I love it. While the sentiment still holds true, I've decided to put that on hold for now. In other words, don't be surprised if I find myself writing about Thanksgiving a week too late. For now, I'd like to talk about the events that have been taking place since the holiday ended.
It all started Saturday.
First, an admission: I haven't been 100% successful in quitting smoking since I made that decision over 2 years ago. That's not to say I've done badly...in fact, I've done amazingly well. I've stayed away from them for the most part, and haven't technically bought a pack of my own since then. There have, however, been several periods of time spent bumming smokes from friends (with lengths ranging from mere days to several months).
These last few weeks have been one of those periods.
I believe that the biggest problem in quitting smoking for good has been the constant availability of the damned things in my home. Autumn has continued to smoke for the past two years, meaning that any bad day at work was a potential deal-breaker for me. When Autumn recently announced that she was going to attempt quitting again, I saw it as a good opportunity to join her and show support. What this meant, however, is that I smoked like crazy for several weeks in preparation, building up a good tolerance in the process. If I was going to quit, I was going to quit damnit.
As recommended by the Colorado Quit Line, Autumn set a "quit date": November 24th, the day after Black Friday. No sense in quitting before her stressful 3:00am-2:00pm day-after-Thanksgiving shift, right? Surely she would need a nicotine fix that day...
If only we had known what was in store for us, though. Black Friday would have been the least of our worries.
Saturday morning rolled around, and her first nicotine patch was neatly placed on her arm. As usual, I was doing it cold turkey. We had decided to celebrate that night by inviting one of the couples we know over to drink. As any seasoned smoker-slash-drinker can tell you, this would be the ultimate test. Three shots of Silver 1800 and a few SoCo & Cokes later and our resolve was certainly being pushed to its limits. But something else was about to happen...
I'm not entirely sure when or why it occurred, but at some point in the night's festivities, the happy couple we had invited over magically transformed into a domestic squabble from hell. There was screaming. There was crying. There was the throwing, slamming, and spilling of objects. At one point, the male lead in this dramatic play actually stormed out and sped off in the car, leaving us to stare at the crying girl on the couch wondering what to do.
In the end he did come back (with a fresh pack of cigarettes) and helped calm her down. The whole thing lasted for hours, though, before finally ending with her on the couch throwing up. The whole thing was entirely forgivable, really, having mostly been the result of a bad combination of tequila, merlot, and medication. Still...this was how "Day 1" went for us: Drunk and stressed with cigarettes readily available and near.
The next morning we awoke with newfound confidence. If we had survived the previous night without crumbling, we could handle anything.
Once again...if only we had known...
It wasn't until Autumn tried to go see her family that Sunday morning that we discovered what had happened one of the three previous nights. She had reached her car only to find her belongings strewn all about. Immediately, she looked around to see what was stolen. While she didn't immediately notice anything missing, she did find some random pieces of broken metal and plastic on the floor. Not knowing what they were exactly, she picked them up and brought them upstairs to tell me.
I followed her downstairs and looked through the car. It was then that I realized what had happened. The entire ignition area was completely smashed apart. It appeared that they had attempted to steal the car, but instead only managed to fuck up completely.
We called the police, who then took six hours to arrive. At one point, as I was looking out the window watching for the cops, I noticed a group of six people hopping the fence into the complex. They had with them a baby in a stroller, which they lifted over the fence, placed on the garage roof for a moment, and then lowered behind the dumpsters. After they had walked the stroller over to their apartment, 4 of them returned to get back on the roof and smoke pot.
Now, I hate waiting. Always have...always will. Each 10 minutes that went by without the police showing up made me want to smoke more and more. The sudden realization that this apartment complex had further devolved into a white trash hell, however, had me damn-near shaking in my withdrawals. All of this on top of an already shitty situation? I was about to fucking lose it...
The worst part of it all, though, was the effect this event had on Autumn. I hated to see her spirit broken by these thieving pieces of shit. Hell, we had bought her that car (her first ever) only 7 months ago, and already some worthless fuck had tried to steal it. I remember how depressing it was when my last car was vandalized/trespassed, and I absolutely hated watching her go through that.
For now, we're going to be busy filling out reports and figuring out how to get the car fixed. The cop lifted some prints from its window, so I'll be waiting for those results and hoping like hell that they're not mine.
The important thing right now is that we made it in the end. Day 3 is almost over, and we show no signs of cracking. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If we survived yesterday without crumbling, we can handle anything. (I just hope we don't have to prove that statement to be true this time.)
