More adventures in Junkie Land.....
Oh boy, today has been a fun day....
I was feeling a little edgy so decided to go to the Stop Smoking Centre in the Central Library about a mile away. But it was their last day as they are moving the library to a new building. 'But', they say, 'the chemist down the road has a quit service. I go there and their Stop Smoking Specialist is on holiday for two weeks.... 'but the branch down the road has a quit specialist!'
So I walk there, thinking 'I have a five pound note in my pocket and 10 cigarettes are £4.50... keep walking...keep walking'. I walk past newsagent after newsagent, past people smoking, and I start to gently twitch.
Keep walking girl, keep walking.
I get there and am faced with a queue. 3 people between me and relief. I have a card with a phone number on it which I'm flicking against my finger nails. I'm moving from foot to foot. People are looking at me. I'm going into 'who you looking at?' mode.... Lord god get me out of here. Come on, come on.... how many bloody sandwiches do you want, woman! Come on... I spot a pack of nicotine gum. £4.99. What other sign do I need?
By now, I'm next but one in the queue. I have a twitch under my eye and I can't stop moving. The woman on the till is watching me out the corner of her eye and trying to rush the customer through so she can get to me. Then she practically grabs the gum out of my restless fingers, rings it through and almost throws it at me.
So I try to get the plastic wrapping off the box. Seriously, why do they make it so hard to get off?! Teeth, fingernails, nothing works. I'm about to go HULK and rip the box limb from limb when the Sales Assistant takes it off me and cuts the plastic away. She shows me how to open the weird cardboard squeezy thing that enables you to actually get to the gum and I throw it in my mouth and chew like a mad bastard. Oh lor the relief.... I stand stock still, eyes closed and let it wash through me like a healing balm.
And then she says to me......
'Would you like to join our NHS Quit for Good Scheme?'
