A peculiar thing, Thursday, when I was taking my lap top in to Best Buy because the display screen was eating itself up. Best Buy has set up a queue for the technical support desk—the Geek Squad, they call it— and there I was, ten or fifteen minutes into the deal. I had chatted up the guy in front of me some when I got there, but that petered out after a few jokes, and I dwindled into a pensive silence. Before long, though, I was at the head of the line, the next one to go. Then a passing stranger recognized the woman behind me and they struck up a conversation. He lodged outside the aisle markers–I suppose to avoid looking as though he were crashing the line, which he wasn’t–but this put him right in my face, as it were, a foot or so away, and he stunk.

He smelt of cigarettes and old ashtrays. He was wearing a sweater which, probably, he wore a lot and for a considerable amount of time between cleanings, and, I suspect, it was the bearer of the most offensive aromas. I looked for an escape, but there was nothing apparent. I either had to stand through it or say something about it. Those were the available exits, so I stood it. Fortunately, the next Geek made his availability known in just a couple of minutes and I was glad to go.

What is remarkable about this is that I’ve been a smoker for over forty years, or was until I found myself hardly able to breathe but still sucking on cigarettes all day last September (or so my vague memory hold–maybe october? We’ve already thrown out the kitchen calendar on which I kept the notes). My lungs hurt, my body hurt, I was having deep unexplainable pains in my chest and I could hardly find the strength to draw one more breath, but I was still smoking. I sat contemplating this on a Sunday night as I smoked up the last couple of cigarettes I had. I was panicking, knowing I was almost out of smokes, but, also, I was dead tired and nearly falling over with sleepiness, so I smoked it up and went to bed.

In the morning, I slept in till eleven or so. I may have discovered Homicide: Life on the Streets playing on WGN already, so I could have been up to watch that. It doesn’t really matter, though. What matters is that I actually found enough strength–or weakness, take your pick, it works out the same–to keep myself from going out until further notice. That worked. And I’d had some forsight and had bought nicotine patches the week before. Okay, yeah, it was less spontaneous that the last paragraph made it seem except that I’d done these prep moves before and was quite aware with how well nicotine-junkie me might trick myself into putting that quit off till tomorrow or next week or, damn it!, when I feel like it! which so often before I had found persuasive.

The quarantine lasted about two months during which I began to take very controlled trips to the grocery. In fact, I mainly stayed home nearly until the Christmas break, wore patches for something like twelve or thirteen weeks–I lost track–and became much more the hermit. It was an ordeal of sorts.

What was remarkable the other day was that I could smell this thing that, quite probably, I wore around most of the time I was teaching school and raising my kids. And, chase it back earlier, was something of a cultural norm, smoking. And now I could smell it. And be offended.

Remarkable progress, don’t you think?