Intellectual Musing

Okay, so this is my most recent intellectual musing, my sister Betsy being Exhibit A.

When one wishes to quit smoking, one might decide to sashay to the local drugstore and pick up a box of nicotine patches. First line of attack, right? Nicotine patches. Easy, breezy, beautifully simple. Rip it open, slap it on, and grit your teeth for the long haul. Perhaps you know someone who has tried to quit smoking before. It ain't pretty. You shake, you're nervous and irritable, your head is pounding and your mouth is dry, your stomach is upset. Everything you see reminds you of cigarettes. You'll be driving down the road chewing your nails to the quick because you're not smoking while you're driving. You pull up to a stoplight, glance out the window and down onto the shoulder of the road where you see, say, a toothpick. Immediately the nicotine receptors in your brain go into kamikaze mode and the only thing you can think about is a cigarette. I mean, even the lovely shade of metallic green of the car next to you reminds you of the green packaging of a box of Marlboro Menthol Lights.

It really is pretty terrible.

So, my sister decided to quit smoking. She goes to the store and buys a few dozen boxes of nicotine patches. (To me this is like helping a heroin junkie come off of heroin by giving them more heroin, except they don't have to stick themselves with a dirty needle. But whatever.) So she buys the patches, feels fantastic, she's finally going to quit smoking after numerous tries. She triumphantly throws the very last cigarette away and opens the box of nicotine patches.

I get a call from Betsy a few hours later. I want an update on how she's feeling, is she all motivated and whatnot, do the patches work. There's an ominous pause. I'm like, Betsy. What are you doing? And she says, smoking a cigarette. And I go, oh, so the patches don't really work then. And she goes, no, no, they do. It's just so much easier to light a cigarette than it is to get through the packaging to the actual patch.

Which is so true. If the manufacturer of these patches really had any idea how fast we smokers need to be able to get into those patches and slap one on, the packaging would dissolve in your mouth in nanoseconds. I mean, you're really really needing a cigarette, but you stand firm. You refuse to smoke your emergency cigarette. So you're clawing frantically at the wrapper on the patch screaming at the voices to shut up and the ghost of your dead parakeet to get off your freaking shoulder already, and you can't get into the patch. So to save your sanity, you go and light up.

This is false advertising. How can it possibly help your cravings if you can't get the blasted thing open, much less stuck to whatever patch of flesh you can most quickly reach? IT CAN'T.