If ever they were hard to resist, it would have been in Europe. Those French and Italians are just so damn suave with their leather, their bronzed complexions, their disinterest, and their cigarettes chicly dangling between their European fingers. And I was just a dirty, broke American backpacking through their countries; I yearned to taste their world of glamour.

But I didn’t.

Granted, yes; I may have tried one in a dark bar on the Italian coast where a friend’s father had left three of us with an open tab. It’s amazing the urges one experiences after a couple hours in a bar with unlimited drinks. Both of my buddies were smoking, as was the entire horde of Italian adolescents who had gathered around us to practice their English. I think I maybe made it through three drags before I had to give up. Cigarette smoke plus shots equals tummy no likey.

Here in the States things are a little different. It’s like our country has turned into one big group hug for non-smokers. Little Timmy is looking at porn on the web, watching his friends get shot at school, and inhaling household cleaners, but at least he’s not smoking! We’ve persecuted our smokers like they were whale hunters, slowly but steadily coming up with new legislation to stop their evil practices.

That’s not to say that it bothers me, mind you.

I think what bothers me most about smoking is the stench. If I had to choose one thing that could compete with my ass in a game of stink-off, I’d have to go with a cigarette. At least methane gas eventually fades away, but cigarette smoke permeates all nearby porous substances and festers there for weeks.

Nonetheless, hundreds of millions of people across God’s green Earth smoke on a regular basis. Even more light up when they’re drunk or stressed. So there’s got to be something that I’m just not getting here.

So, I decided to figure it out. I didn’t really have too much to write about this week anyway.

Thomas Nagel once wrote an article called "What it is Like to be a Bat," in which he philosophizes about what it would be like to not have sense perceptions. It’s a gripping romp through the exciting world of epistemology and philosophy of the mind. A must read, really.

While that’s all well and good for Mr. Nagel, I decided that if I really wanted to understand the appeal of smoking, mere theorizing wasn’t going to hack it. No sirree. I was going to have to get off of my lazy ass and find me a cigarette! And then I was going to have to smoke it!

After my heroin problem back in junior high, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of toying with another addictive substance. For some reason, it seemed more dangerous to smoke a cigarette for no reason than to fire up with an excuse. So, I locked myself out of my room. I rattled the door back and forth, trying to work up a good, stressful anger. After about ten seconds my bewildered girlfriend opened the door with one of the most horrified facial expressions I’ve ever seen. I explained that the rattling was all part of an elaborate experiment in the name of journalistic and scientific progression, and I went back to work.

Once I was good and pissed, I grabbed my Camel Light and headed outside. I didn’t really feel like I needed a cigarette, but then seemed as good a time as any. The first hit was as clean and refreshing as a mountain stream. Except much dirtier and far less refreshing. I don’t want to say that I coughed up a lung, but I sure as hell coughed up something. The second hit didn’t go over too well either, and a second fit of coughing ensued.

Luckily for me, it was around this time that Marcelle Ferguson ’01 came outside for a smokey smokey of her own. After I explained my interest in the world of smoking tobacco, she was eager to lend a hand. She advised that I inhale more gently, and hold the smoke in for a shorter period of time. Another passerby offered advice in the form of telling me I held the cigarette like a "wussy." Ha ha. I toked, coughed, inhaled, and coughed for a good couple of minutes. When I couldn’t take any more, I dropped my Camel Light and stepped on it as I’ve seen my friends and James Dean do so often. As the icing on my smoking cake, I left the butt on the ground rather than throwing it away.

So, that’s that. I’ve now smoked an entire cigarette alls by myself. I can honestly say that that is something that I never want to do again. Dear God, please do not subject me to such cruelty.

People have told me that I should have started with a mellower cigarette; maybe a Benson and Hedges Light or something menthol. But the goal in this awful, awful experiment was to figure out just what is so damn appealing about cigarettes. I didn’t want to pussyfoot my way into the world of smokers, I wanted to dive in headfirst.

And now I know the truth: smokers are the toughest, most hardcore people in this world and we should treat them with respect. We should revere and fear them, because they can withstand torture that any non-smoker would shrink away from in horror. These are America’s few and proud, these are the citizens who will lead our great country into the next millennium. I say hail to the smokers, and God bless each and every one of you who endure the hell that is a cigarette so the rest of us don’t have to.