I started smoking cigarettes after I graduated from high school and moved in with my grandmother. Now, my grandma isn't the sweet, cookie baking type. Everyone in the family refers to her fondly as "Pat C" - she's chain-smokin’, booze-drinkin’, swears like a sailor, and she allegedly still has frequent hook-ups with the cute old man that puts away her grocery cart at Trucchi’s. If that doesn't give you a stunning visual, I don't know what will. Anyway, I moved in with her and the transition went smoothly. We were the best of friends. Every morning, she would hand me her credit card, and I would take a walk over to the country store and buy her three packs of Maverick Menthol cigarettes. Every evening, we would sit down together and watch a movie, while her ashtray slowly transformed into what vaguely resembled one of those Bloomin’ Onion appetizers from the Outback Steakhouse.

Pictured: Pat C gettin' wild.

After a while, she began to offer me a cigarette every time she had one for herself. Now, I had smoked cigarettes before - my mom had bought me two packs of Parliaments for my thirteenth birthday, and those made me incredibly ill. When I was in high school, my best friend and I would occasionally get a hold of cigarettes from our older friends. But I had never smoked a menthol cigarette. My grandma eventually wore me down, and I accepted one of her Mavericks and lit it with a white lighter, stained yellow by her nicotine-soaked fingers. It was fresh; I didn't mind it. Very unusual.

So then it began. Every night, when we sat down to watch television together, I would smoke with my grandma. This carried on for a few weeks, until one morning as I was walking out to the store to buy her cigarettes, she casually told me to buy a pack for myself. I walked a mile to the country store and asked for four packs of Maverick Menthols. I had twenty whole cigarettes all to myself, to smoke whenever I wanted. That pack lasted several days, as still, I only smoked with grandma in the evening. But, every day, she sent me out to buy her smokes, and a pack for myself.

This was the summer of 2015, and for months I had been smoking these menthol cigarettes. I went out with Tyler, my now-boyfriend, a few times, casually. We met for coffee and went back to his place, and over the course of six hours I had smoked the two packs of cigarettes that were in my purse. He was a chain smoker, and I was simply trying to keep up with him. We were laying beside each other; I had a screaming headache and a nauseated belly. I sat right up, looked directly at him, and said, “Where's the bathroom? I'm going to vomit." He directed me, and I hurled nothing but tobacco into the toilet. Too much smoke.

I went back to the corner store the next day, bought three menthol packs for my grandmother. But for myself, I needed something different after my menthol-induced sickness from the night before. I decided to give my dad’s cigarettes a try - Marlboros. I smoked those for a while, and switched over to Marb Lights because they were a lot easier on me. That's what I've smoked to this day.

I average about a pack a day, and that's just fine with me. The questions at hand are, “Why would you smoke cigarettes? Why haven't you quit?”

The answers are quite simple - I smoke cigarettes, because I like cigarettes. I already understand that cigarettes kill, that they don't do anything good for you, and that's fine. I enjoy them anyway. I haven't quit (and I never intend to) because I honestly don't care enough to give up something I like so much! The one and only thing I don't like about cigarettes is the cost, but even that I can justify as there are far worse and more costly habits, and if smoking cigarettes is the worst thing I'm doing, then I feel like I'm doing alright.