Montego Take Me Away

 I have officially smoked all of my Montego menthol gold 100s. They were sweet going down, but this is a bitter end. I loved those smokes, and I can only get them in Virginia (road trip, anyone?). Is it okay to be sad about this, and remorseful that I didn’t savor them longer? I went through a carton in seven days, and that is pretty good for me. I know all of you want me to stop smoking, and especially to stop writing about the smoking. Well, life’s not fair.

What is a menthol gold cigarette? John thinks I’m silly for smoking a brand with such a stupid misnomer. Gold? Really? As if a cancer stick could have any inherent value, any redeeming quality. Well, you know they give all this marijuana these fancy names, juicy, delicious names, for some nasty fucking plant that never did nobody no good. Hey, you like weed? I like cigarettes. We all pick our own poison. Let’s call it even.

A menthol gold cigarette is just a milder menthol cigarette (I looked it up). That’s it. It’s not enhanced; if anything it’s dumbed down. They’re not expensive. They’re not flavored. They’re marketed. And I fell for it, cause I like a good adjective. Really, I bought them by mistake: I just asked the cashier for a cheap menthol cigarette (cause you know I was probably about to buy some newport) and she rang me up the gold variety, and since I liked them, I kept requesting them. The white filter was such a nice visual change from the depressing yellow of senecas. The “taste” was refreshing. The name was cool, and I always wanted to fit in with the cool crowd (so I took up smoking like a loser). I found my thing, even if it was a mouthful to say. “One pack of Montego menthol gold 100s, please.” 

I was smoking slightly less in Virginia, as my brother and I decided it would not be right to smoke in the trailer — Mom would NOT like that. And we like our mom, and between the two of us there is enough self control and respect to make one decent human being. We’re not so bad. So we only smoked in the bathroom at night, because it was freezing (and I’m scared of the dark, and the scary Virginia woods), with the window open and a decent mist of aerosol. I bought a can of jasmine coconut spray — we were doing the bathroom a favor.

And maybe you’re wondering, if I like my mother, and she detested that I smoke, and also died from cancer, why would I continue smoking? For all her qualms about it, my mother smoked for years, at least completely through her twenties and thirties. But she quit. I am bonafide guilty of it being both my coping mechanism and guilty pleasure, aka I’m hopelessly addicted to nicotine. I hope she can understand that (I’m sorry, Mom (I should say that a thousand times)). And smoking didn’t kill my mother…cancer did.

Now, my brother doesn’t really smoke; my smoking kind of relit his addiction, which he’ll quit again once he goes through some packs of Senecas I left him (I had to get those damn things off my hands. And he only smokes like two a day, which is pretty admirable). We shared some smoke breaks in the middle of movies, which made the movies tolerable for me, cause I’m a frequent smoker, and I have to say, smoking with someone is better than smoking alone, thinking your own thoughts and talking to yourself (at least I can laugh at my own jokes, like this one: I went outside to take this cigarette for a walk…(geez)). I think smokers have the best conversation. Nicotine may be a chemical, and it’s a good catalyst (I can verify that as a writer), but it’s still technically a sober activity (yay).

Like I said, the Montegos are gone, but I’m gonna keep one empty box to remind me that it was not a dream. But I’ve moved on (to greener tobacco pastures): our own Florida brand 305 makes a menthol gold, and it’s not too bad, and relatively cheap. I’ll try not to smoke them like crazy. That’s the best I can do. And it’s good enough for me. 

Happy smoking. Or not.