I smoke 3 bowls a day. We have a nasty weather spell every year sometime towards the end of January where the temperature hovers between -9 to -13 F for about 2 1/2 weeks. These cold spells often combine with a cold-steady-wind. At work, I don't want to go into the cold to smoke a pipe.
My smoking "shelter" at work is the parking lot behind the tire store next door. Where I work, we're a tobacco free workplace. I'm an engineer, smoking with the tire techs and their managers and clerks. Mostly, when the weather’s nice, we gossip and swap tales over a smoke. But, the shelter is no shelter at all. The shelter is by the back door of the building facing the wind, cutting you like a knife.
I don’t smoke a pipe during the cold snap. Sometimes going six or seven days without a bowl.
I manage by buying those round 4 mg nicotine lozenges and break them in quarters with my thumb. Each quarter delivering a 1 mg dose. Mostly I suck them for 10 or 15 minutes but there’s times when the pressures on when I can chew the dose for a quick pick-me-up.
Most people with a nicotine addiction at work dip, some smoke cigs or cigars in their cars. I dipped chew for a time but as I was promoted and called into high level meetings, I got tired of picking black specs out of my teeth. Chew in the tea bags never felt right, I'd suck and nibble, get a gush of spit and before you knew it became a slime ball that moved along the entire canal between my cheek and gum, occurring often during the most inopportune times.
I had such a difficult time giving up cigarettes that I don’t dare pick them up to get me through these times.
Today, I love my pipe and tobacco. When it’s colder than a well diggers ass, I patiently wait for the weather to break. Then, the ritual begins by me lighting the tobacco in my pipe. The three of us soon delight together in the fellowship of the realm! Then, life is at its best!
