Time to give up smoking

“We would be landing shortly at Phuket International Airport. Please put your seats upright and continue smoking as usual.”

At least that was what I had imagined the cabin crew saying as I slowly stirred from my slumber. Well what the cabin crew really said was just “put your seat upright”. Anyway we smokers can always dream on, can’t we? Most especially in a nicotine-deprived state of mind. It must have been one of the longest period of time that I had been without a cigarette, not counting the time I gave up cigarettes for four years, that is.

Frequent flyers from 20 years ago would probably look back with fond memories to the time we were still allowed to smoke in airplanes, both short haul and long haul. Those were the days when smokers still have some rights before the whole thing was overturned and the rights of non-smokers not to breathe second-hand smoke took precedence over that of smokers to pollute the air. And before the non-smokers brigade take up arms and come looking for the writer to snuff him out, rest assured that this is by no means a campaign for the rights of smokers. Far from that. Like the second class citizens that we are in most parts of the world, we have long ago resigned ourselves to being treated like outcastes whenever we light up, whether at the office or sometimes in our homes as well.

Anyway, this particular incident happened on a flight between Sydney and Bangkok, with stopovers in Melbourne and Phuket. I had my last puff outside the airport terminal in Sydney, hoping to catch another cigarette or two in Melbourne before our next stop in Phuket. But it seems Melbourne or Melbourne Airport authorities are indeed serious about getting smokers to give up the habit. During the hour or so stopover, every possible direction that I went in search of a smoking room was an exercise in futility. Which brings me to the conclusion that in the food chain, we smokers rank even below drug addicts, especially in Melbourne. How do you explain the fact that the toilets in Melbourne Airport have places for addicts to dispose of their syringes after they have pumped their system full with whatever it is that addicts pump their system full with. Wait a minute. Maybe the containers were there for diabetics to dispose of their needles after giving themselves their insulin injections. Yeah, right!

But I must admit that being forced to breathe untainted air for a change was not all that bad. Almost made you think you could actually kick the nasty habit. At least until we reached Phuket, that is. I was among the first passengers off the plane. Others can go check out the toilets. We shall go check out the air quality in the smoking room. And indeed there were a few like-minded souls like I who instinctively know just where to go although at five in the morning our sense of direction should have been way off. One unlucky gentleman in fact did find out the hard way, mistaking the glass wall for a door. He must have thought the Phuket Airport authorities were playing a cruel joke by providing a smoking room with no doors. But other smokers soon pointed him in the right direction before he started tearing whatever was left of his hair out.

As most reformed smokers can testify, if you give up the habit, what else is there to do but eat. And eat non stop. Anything you can lay your hands on. This is compounded by the fact that on such long haul flights the cabin crew seem to be feeding you non-stop. It’s eat, sleep, eat some more, sleep again and eat again. Somewhere in between there is a hot or cold towel to keep you sufficiently awake to know which side of the spoon to use. And somewhere in between the female flight attendants had gotten out of their traditional Thai costumes and squeezed into a purple blouse and skirt. I think they are just trying to fool you into thinking it is a different set of people who are feeding you this time around.

And if you ever wonder where all the food the go, I will let you on to a little secret. It’s actually to your feet, which somehow grow to one and half times your shoe size. It does not matter what yoga position you try to put yourself into to counter the swelling. Your feet will not return to their original size in a while yet. If nothing else, the experience kind of make you understand and sympathise a bit more the next time women talk about water retention and stuff.

--ends—

(The writer in fact took a break from smoking three years after writing this)