Life... With No Breaks (A laugh-out-loud comedy memoir) by Nick Spalding

I’ll tell you about it later.
    Promise.
     
     

 
     
     
    6.21 am
    24495 Words
     
     
    Twelve hours in!
    Twelve hours and listen - it sounds like we’ve got some friends celebrating the milestone with us.
    Can you hear them?
    The dawn chorus has started with a vengeance and my feathered friends are heralding a new day in the only way they know how.
    Thousands of birds, all basically shouting:
    ‘This is my tree! Fuck off!’
    Kind of takes the romance away when you know that, doesn’t it?
     
    Want some breakfast? I know it’s probably too early and the sun’s only just over the horizon, but I’ve got some pop-tarts in the fridge. You’ll have to eat them cold, as the toaster is still knackered. It met with Spalding’s towering rage after destroying a raisin crumpet I was particularly looking forward to. You can try sticking the pop tart in the George Foreman, but I’m not making any promises it’ll work.
    I’ll just smoke another cigarette if you don’t mind.
     
    While we’re on the subject of cigarettes… you might want to strap yourself in, this is likely to get a bit bumpy.
    Smoking.
    I love it.
    Sorry to all you non or ex-smokers out there, but I do.
    Yes, I know its bad for me and yes, I know it’s expensive.
    My lungs may be full of tar and my chest may wheeze like an asthmatic asbestos cleaner, but I love it anyway.
    Partially, this is out of spite.
    I can be a very stubborn man and when it comes to smoking, this part of my personality comes out in spades. Chances are that if smoking was still an accepted part of society no-one complained about, I would have quit years ago.
    But its not, is it?
    Oh no .
    It seems there’s nothing worse these days than pulling out a pack of ciggies and lighting one up. People look at you like you’re a leper. They point and wail in disgust as you draw on your little white tube of chemical nastiness. They pompously tell you it’s affecting their health through passive smoking.
    Good.
    Fuck ‘em .
    The more they moan, the more I smoke.
    If people would just shut up about it and leave me be, I’d be more amenable to putting the packet back in my coat and chewing some sugar-free gum instead.
     
    Everybody has an opinion on whether you can quit or not, like they have some divine oracle-like wisdom about your chances of kicking the habit that you’re not privy to.
    Just before I got married, I decided to quit - well, I thought about it anyway.
    I made the mistake of talking to people about my intentions.
    In idle conversation, I’d say I was thinking about quitting and how it would be nice to count on their moral support. I especially did this with my non-smoking friends. After all, they would be more than happy to usher me into their healthy ranks, surely?
    Nothing could have been further from the truth.
    Instead of helpful tips on how to quit, or assurances they’d be there when I needed a bit of cheering up, I got this:
    ‘Oh, you’ll never quit.’
     ‘I bet you can’t quit for long.’
    Oh thanks, that’s very helpful isn’t it?
    That really motivates me to make the grand leap into the world of patches and chewing gum.
    It was the smokers around me who gave me the support I craved - pun intended. They were the ones to nod understandingly and offer words of encouragement.
    Isn’t that totally arse about face?
    The ones you think you can count on for help put you down, and the ones you’d think would be unhelpful turn out to be your saviours.
    It’s a phenomenon I’ve never come across before.
    In no other situation does it apply.
    Let’s use something as an analogy for it, shall we? Something that’ll exemplify my point nicely:
    Politics.
    You are a Tory.
    You’ve voted Tory all your adult life. You liked the way Thatcher ran things and didn’t mind the fact she took away the milk break at schools. The privatisation of the country’s infrastructure didn’t affect you in the slightest and you even like the colour blue.
    Now, over the past few