Every so often, a blog (even one as flashy and wonderful as Tony’s) needs a publicity stunt. Now is one of those times.

So, Tony has teamed up with The Reluctant Receptionist to write a simultaneous entry about a prescribed topic: our first cigarette. Stay tuned for the exciting results!

I remember the moment very clearly, it was a turning point in my life: afternoon in the woods with Frank and Billy, Frank taking great pains to help me inhale. Dizziness and frolicking, the intimacy of youth. But this must wait, because there is a history.

You can blame television or advertising or a moral lapse of society, I think the desire for substance was in my genes. The image, the authority of holding a cigarette and a bottle of beer in my hands. The pause and contemplation. I was five or six when I remember the fulfillment of this desire as my cousin and I sipped our cream sodas in bottles and puffed on bubble-gum cigarettes. All we did was pose, and strut, and try to mimic our parents who were drinking and smoking on the front lawn. The bubble-gum sticks were designed so if you blew on them a puff of powder was released from the end. Genius.

So the mystique and fascination was well-learned before Frank stopped me after lunch to tell me that Billy had a surprise for us. I was 15. 10th grade. I was in love with Frank and had been friends with Billy for 7 years. At times Billy was annoying, clingy and nerdy, but today he had scored a couple cigarettes from one of the older boys on his golf team. Frank asked me if I’d ever smoked before. I said no, denying my bubblegum days.

Billy lived in a subdivision off the main strip of town and across from an undeveloped wooded area. We dropped our stuff off at his house, in his room, performed our prerequisite and nervous giggles, and headed out for “a walk.” Down the path, over the hill, and behind the dilapidated old house. All the while, Frank was explaining how to inhale. “Just breath in, deeply, quickly.” We practiced and he judged. “Good job, guys.”

We had two cigarettes and a couple packs of matches. Soon we had less than a half pack of matches as our flames were blown out in the wind. But we prevailed and Frank puffed and coughed and then said, “Watch.” He pulled, elegantly, chest-expanding, face-discoloring, and then exhaled and started to giggle. “Head rush,” he explained, “try it!”

The moment of truth. I pursed my lips and he placed the thing inside. He coached and I sucked. “Breath in your chest, don’t just hold it in your mouth!” I tried. Burn and cough and spit. I dropped it. Billy shrieked.

But I was hooked. Instead of letting Billy take a turn I pleaded with Frank to show me again. So he placed his hand on my back and put it in my mouth again and I felt the smoke enter my lungs. Penetration. And suddenly the world turned upside down as the tingles danced all over my skin and I tripped and fell over. Frank fell with me. We laughed and rolled around, forgetting about Billy and the world.

The afternoon continued with a masterful idea of lighting the second cigarette with the first and Billy got to play. But soon it was back in my mouth and I inhaled again, held it in too long, and felt the heavenly bliss that is a rush from a cigarette. And nausea, but I just ignored that.

We tried to calm ourselves down, but the exhilaration of being bad was just too good.

On the way back to Billy’s house we all used the breathspray we’d stolen from his mother’s purse. And Frank cautioned us to “try and act like nothing happened.” I pretended, but I never forgot.