Spent The Evening Crappin Bricks

I had a terrible couple of hours Wednesday night. Mickey and Kaitlyn had their first out of town basketball game that day. They were travelling to a town that's about 45 minutes west of us. Mickey is an assistant coach for the grade 8 girls team, and Kaitlyn is a point guard. Anyway, I figured that since the town is practically within spitting distance, they'd be home around 6 or 7 pm. I started to get concerned by 8...was downright frantic and on the verge of calling the police by 9. I live way up in the mountains...roads are curvy and treacherous, and the area is notorious for avalanches and accidents. Winter travel is not undertaken lightly here. To make matters worse, their bus had broken down 2 days before, when they were supposed to have had their first away game. They had to wait by the side of the road for over an hour before another school bus could be found to bring them home. By the time they came in at 9:30, I was pretty much hyperventilating. I knew that there had been no slides, but I hadn't had the nerve to ask about accidents. Just when I was ready to burst into tears of sheer frustration, my mom called to vent about the crappy night she was having. Anyway, it turns out that the boys team went with them, and they had to play their games one at a time. The school they were at is even smaller than ours. They went for food after they were done, then headed for home. They didn't waste much time, really. However, while they were enjoying Subway and Tim Hortons, I was pacing a hole in my kitchen floor, twisting the ring on my right hand round and round...and vaguely thinking about going across the street to bum a smoke. When that idea popped into my head, I was surprised, to say the least. I thought to myself, "What if something DID happen? Would I react by smoking?" At the time, I didn't honestly know. The only thing I did know was that I thought pretty seriously about smoking for a moment or two. It was the first bona fide "crave" that I had felt for some time. It would've been so easy...there's Mickey's co-worker Max and his wife Jean across one street, Jean's dad and his woman across the other (I'm on the corner), and my next door neighbor, Anna...all of whom smoke and would have no problems scoring me one. I would hope that even in the face of dire circumstances, I could keep my commitment to remaining smoke free. Sure, the thought crossed my mind when I was panicking. I was hooked on one of the most addictive substances on the planet...of course the thought of smoking will crop up occasionally. If push came to shove, though...would I actually do it? I don't think I would have. I was in the grips of a full blown panic attack that would've sent me racing for the psychotropics a couple years ago. When I thought about going to one of the neighbors, the rational part of my mind asked the freaking out part, "If something has happened to Mick and Kaity, will smoking change anything? Will it make them well or bring them back? No? Then don't be so bloody stupid!" Then I carried on pacing until Mom called. I let her vent for a minute, then said, "Y'know, I'm not having such a great evening myself." When I told her what was going on, she was pretty supportive. We commiserated with each other until my family strolled in with Slurpees, after worrying me near to death. LOL Mick felt really bad...he just assumed that I knew that the boys and girls teams had the same schedule. I said, " You know what they say about assuming...and you sure made an ASS outta U and ME this time, pal!"All in all, it was a pretty harrowing couple of hours. I'm pretty proud of myself, though. Not only did I not smoke, I got through a full throttle, heart racing, sweaty palmed, claw-my-way-outta-my-freakin -skin anxiety attack without benefit of psych drugs. Oh hell yeah!! GO ME!!!!!!!!