I've been livin' on coffee and nicotine...

Saturdays have become the bane of my existence. I work at a restaurant and though I hold out hope every time I open the schedule book, every week for the past three months I've been scheduled this Saturday double. Doubles on the weekends are the worst because it's often steady all day or there's a late rush which means I almost never get a substantial break. There's always time to smoke - because I swear even if the restaurant was full and the owner was sitting at the bar, I would go out for a cigarette between shifts. There's just no way I can make it through the twelve or thirteen hour day without one (/several). Saturdays I often let myself have a few extra, because damn.

I work at a very unique restaurant in that almost nobody smokes. The first three restaurants I worked at, everybody smoked. In fact it was probably getting my first serving job at a brewpub in South Denver when I was 19 that really solidified my status as a smoker. During Pregame (meeting before the shift to brief everyone on specials and 86s) we would all sit at the bar smoking (also, since it was a brewpub, the staff would split a pitcher of beer, excluding my sad underage self). I have some fond memories of smoke breaks at that restaurant, and at the others. Most of the time managers were sympathetic to us, but at the restaurant I work at now, we're not even allowed to smoke while we're clocked in at all. Though that doesn't stop me most of the time. I'd never go while I had a table but after my last one pays out I'm out the back door like a bat out of hell. I'm pretty sure my manager knows I do this, and a lot of other girls would get yelled at if they tried it, but luckily I do my job and she cuts me some slack.

So the smokers are me, my roommate, the bartender, and a couple of the kitchen guys. It seems to be a pattern that the people who smoke are also the people who get into all sorts of other trouble. Not to categorize tobacco as a gateway drug, but I feel like if you are reckless enough to decide to start smoking, you're probably reckless enough to do a lot of shit. Personally, I'm stuck on probation for another 9 months because I'm reckless enough to get caught driving drunk. Twice. On the upside, I've read more than once that smokers are always the most interesting people in the room. Because we have LITTLE CONCERN FOR DEATH!

Well, not. Which is why I'm trying to quit. Thinking about quitting. Writing about quitting in order to explore my desire to smoke. Yeah that's it.