Today is Day 24. In anticipation of Day 25 and being one-fourth of the way to nothing other than a date along the path of being quit forever (mind you that I'm looking DAMN forward to getting to that date though), I offer my top five reasons so far for being quit - and other than number 1 being the clear number 1, the rest are in no particular order:
1. I am quit. I am done. I may very well be an addict (okay...I am), but I'm no longer a slave. Easily number one. Plain and simple.
2. For the love of all things holy...how did I ever justify something that cost me upwards of $12 per day over the last five to ten years? Just using rough numbers, that's almost $4,400 per year. I won't bore you with numbers...just go to an online calculator of what would happen to that money if invested for the last decade. I haven't made a rough calculation of what it has been over the last 25 plus years. That's just depressing.
3. Since December 19th, the door to my office has not been closed a single time at work. When colleagues, employees, clients, or partners have wanted to speak to me there has been no closed door. When someone has tapped on the door (they still do so on the door jam out of politeness even though the door is open), I'm not scrambling to drag a coyote turd out of my cheek. I'm not forcing myself not to smile for fear of dip being spread out in my teeth like, well, someone dipping. I don't have to hope that they don't get close to me because the overpowering smell of Skoal Long Cut Mint is pervasive in the air. Oh, and I haven't had one instance of dropped dip when inserting or removing so it's not in the carpet, on my desk, on my credenza, in my keyboard, etc.
4. For 24 days, I haven't had one time where I had to be careful about being too close to my wife, not kissing her, not hugging her, not turning my head when watching something on television and she walks into the room, etc. This is probably right up there at Number Two. If you've been a NINJA dipper, then the liberation from the hiding, sneaking, slinking, and generally being an ass-clown douche bag is a great, great feeling.
5. This last one I'm going to call "confidence." Not like I am now super confident in everything because I have quit for a few weeks. More like - I haven't had one instance in the last three weeks where I have looked at my fingernails or fingers and seen brown stains or dip jammed up under the nails. I haven't had a stain on a pair of jeans, socks (you know the old move where you put a dip in while driving and then rub your fingers on your shoes or socks...right?), or shirt. I haven't looked in the mirror and seen black specks on my chin or in the corner of my mouth and wondered who the hell else had seen them before I saw them. I don't worry when I run into the mom of a friend of one of my kids if my breath smells like a camel's taint because I just took a dip out a few minutes earlier. I don't run into a friend in the store or a restaurant and wonder whether or not it looks like I have gaps between EVERY one of my teeth because there is dip stuck all over the place. In other words, I know that I don't exhibit the smells and characteristics of someone that is a lowly bitch to the nicotine tramp. That feels good. Makes me glad to run into folks rather than wish I could slip out of the way without being seen. What a miserable existence I had before. Damn straight I'm glad that it's gone.
