Oddlings

me, charging any random cat i see: cat!!!!

[audio transcript]

You sound like you’ve never had the scent of cigarette smoke ingrained in your clothes to the point where people in middle school thought you smoked at eleven because your parents couldn’t be bothered to go outside. You sound like you’ve never had your mother flick cigarette ashes out of the car window and have them fly into your face. You sound like you’ve never been kept up at night by the sound of your dad hacking up a lung because he has to get up for his midnight smoke. You sound like you’ve never had to run into a convenience store to get your mother cigarettes as soon as you turned eighteen and cringed at touching the box because you know they’re not only killers but government sanctioned killers because they can not only tax the shit out of them but ensure people buy more at the cost of young lungs and a once beautiful home now plagued with the smell of smoke and ash. You sound like you’ve never had a great grandmother who stopped smoking 30 years before her death who still got lung cancer and subsequently died. You sound like a Fucking ignoramus. Smoking isn’t Fucking cool, it isn’t fun to glorify, it’s disgusting and makes not only you but your children smell bad. Makes not only you but your children cough, get cancer, get sick.

My aunt took up smoking in secret as a coping method for her depression. My cousin found out and she was so scared for her mom’s health that she hid the cigarettes. But when my aunt noticed they were missing, do you think she had a calm conversation about the whole thing with my cousin? Nope. She stormed into her room in such a rage, my cousin was too scared to even argue. She just gave the cigarettes back and prayed for her mom to leave the room. There was no explanation for why she took up smoking, for why she was trying to hide it, no reassurance for her worried daughter, not even a question as to why my cousin took them… there was just addiction-fueled anger. Directed at a child who had no control over her environment.

My emotions are valid*

A distinction for anyone who is young and hasn’t figured this out yet:

Wig Stuff