THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, July 22, 2010 A
brendan@weirs.com inNEW HAMP SHI R E FOOL * Live Free *A FLATLANDER’S OBSERVATIONS ON LIFE CONFESSIONS OF AN ADDICT
by Brendan Smith Weirs Times Editor
I have a confession to make.
I’m a junkie. Yup! I’m one of those people
you are always reading about who is addicted to oil. I can’t help it. I’ve been
on the stuff for years and the more I try to come off it, the more I find myself needing it. Maybe you’ve seen me getting my fix down at the local convenience store. I’m the guy at the pump wearing the sunglasses, pulling in for a quick top off, swiping my debit card and filling up. It seems no matter how much I take I always have to come back for more. I’ve tried kicking the
habit. It’s not easy. I stopped filling up for a couple of weeks a few months ago and it was terrible. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t work, couldn’t even face my family and friends. Now that I’m back on the stuff I can get food
again and show up at work and visit family in New York once in awhile. It makes life seem so easy when you’re on the stuff. When I lived in New
York 25 years ago, I used the stuff a little in the winter. There really didn’t seem to be much of a problem. But now that I’m in Central New Hamp- shire, I find myself need- ing the stuff more than I ever did to get through the short cold days and the long freezing nights. I tried going off the stuff
one winter but I caught a case of the chills like you read about and couldn’t seem to ever get warm. It was just a quick fix from my local supplier and soon I was feeling like I was on Cloud Nine again. My suppl ier usual ly
comes when I’m not at home. He just drops off a bill. He trusts me, as much as any supplier will trust a good customer. He knows if I don’t pay up he can simply cut off the supply and I’ll be left to my own defenses, shiver- ing, trying to kick a habit
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I know I won’t. I’ve talked with other
junkies like me, and be- lieve me there are a lot of us. There’s a few who have tried going off the stuff in small steps. Less gas in the car, turn the thermostat down, but that hard, sick feeling soon comes upon them and they quickly fall off the wagon. I know a few who have
tried to go cold turkey and give up anything and everything that’s made with the stuff: Car tires, crayons, fertilizer, can- dles, aspirin, golf balls, glue, trash bags, shav- ing cream, toothbrushes transparent tape, lipstick, cold cream, vitamin cap- sules, shoe polish, nylon rope, bandages, guitar strings, umbrellas, fishing lures, hearing aids, floor wax and even shoes…on and on and on. They even stopped going to the mov- ies because they used the stuff to make the film. Needless to say, it never lasted.
It never does. I’ve read about those 12-
step programs. Seemed pretty easy at first, until I got to the part about mak- ing a list of all the people I’ve hurt while on the stuff and making amends to them all. When I stopped to think of how many folks I might have cut off on the highway or tailgated over the almost 40 years I’ve been using, it seemed an impossible task. Anyway, you have to get
off the stuff first to even do that. That’s the hard- est part. Sometimes people talk about how much better it was, years ago, when no one was on the stuff. Sure it took days to get some- where you can get to in an hour now and people pretty much froze their rear ends off huddled to- gether in front of those tiny fireplaces. Of course that was after you had trekked home through
the horse manure filled streets of the cities. The days when people didn’t live much past 40 years old. “Those were the days,” They say. In all honesty, I’ve decid-
ed I like being on the stuff. I admit that I’m hooked and I really have no de- sire to kick the habit. It just makes my life seem so much easier. Makes my day to day existence a little easier to take. I guess I’m proud to be a junkie. Proud to be addicted to
oil. You know you’re one
too. You can admit it. And you know how good it makes you feel. Drill baby drill!!
Brendan Smith wel-
comes your comments at
brendan@weirs.com.
or Die.
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