You can blame Lady. She requested a story so it is her fault for encouraging me to write this rubbish.
Do you remember how the first thing that you had to do when you got stressed out was light up. You just had to suck a huge lungful of that garbage into your system because it helped. You could not imagine how you would cope without your "friend".
Fear, in my opinion, is the biggest hurdle that we have to overcome in order to stop smoking (and for those of you who are lucky enough not to have read one of my shambolic rambles, I never use the expression "giving up", because "giving up" what exactly? lung cancer? drug dependency? smelling like a turkish wrestler's jock strap?).
How on earth would we cope? What would we be missing? What if we got stressed?
It all started in a routine way.
We were simply going to drive 125 miles to my parents for their 50th wedding anniversery party. For you guys over the pond, that is probably equivalent to popping to the corner shop. In the UK, driving out to Norwich on the East coast with caravans on rural roads in holiday season, it is roughly the same as crossing the Sierra Nevada on a pogo stick whilst dressed as a gorrila.
Anyway, after 125 miles at 12.5 miles an hour with nutters trying to overtake at every opportunity on blind corners, we pulled into the driveway and the house disappeared in a cloud of steam from under the bonnet (hood for you Yanks). "Oh dear, what a shame" I said. No......I cannot tell a lie, actually I said "Bugg*r it!"
As I got out of the car, the mobile phone rang.
"My plumbing is knackered and I cannot turn off the hot tap" said a wailing voice. A friend of mine had gone on holiday and had given my number to his tennants in case they had problems. "Bugg*r it!" I repeated.
"Hurry up" yelled someone else, "We want to toast the happy couple". Toast the happy couple................I would have happily have spit roasted them at that moment.
"Call the plumber" I said to the woman on the telephone, "And call me back if you don't get anywhere". "Hang on a minute" I said to the toast person, "I'll be there in a mo".
As I wandered into the room, someone thrust a glass of some revolting fizzy wine into my hand and told me that as the oldest son, could I say a few words to cel