The one time I smoked

I never wanted to smoke cigarettes. I couldn't see the point. But there was one occasion when other considerations overcame my distaste for the habit.

When I was very young, I was travelling around Greece with a friend. We had a guide book that said there was a youth hostel in a certain village, and we arrived there by bus. The hostel was above a taverna, and being run by an American who was hardly any older than me. The village was among olive groves on a hillside about half an hour's walk up from the beach, and the hostel had a problem. A new hostel had just opened down by the beach, and most people were going there instead. This meant that the taverna wasn't selling enough food and drink, so the hostel manager's main job was to organise a party once a week to get people from the new place to come up for a meal. It was pleasantly quiet most of the time in the old hostel, but with some lively evenings.

The old hostel did have a few costomers. A French couple arrived. I'd been sleeping outside, but I had my belongings in one of the dormitories which had been empty but now had two French occupants. I'd left my glasses in there one night, and in the morning I needed them to see. I opened the door to find a very surprised French couple. Without my glasees, they were just a pink blur, but it was quite clear what they were doing. I backed out quickly. I don't know if I'd upset them, but they left that day.

Well, love was in the air. Lots of young unattached people were meeting in youth hostels. Everyone was your new best friend for a few days. Then you'd probably never see them again. There were Americans, Australians, Germans and Brits. Oh, and two French people, but they'd left suddenly. Lots of people were travelling on their own. One was Doris, a Germany dental technician. She was older than most people by about a decade. But she seemed interested in me. I decided that the age gap wasn't a problem, and one evening in the tarverna I spent a lot of time sitting at the bar talking to Doris, drinking retsina. It was a fun evening, but things didn't go beyond talking, drinking and flirting.

The next morning I woke up feeling truly awful. My head hurt. My throat hurt. My stomach felt awful. The world was spinning around me. It felt like I'd drunk retsina by the bottle, but I knew I'd only had a few glasses. Then I remembered the stupid thing I'd done. Doris was a smoker, and when she'd lit a cigarette, she'd offered one to me. And I'd stupidly thought that the flirty thing to do was accept, and more than once. Oh my word, I felt grim.

To cap things off, Doris left later that day with Mark, an American bloke with muscles and luxuriant flowing hair.

A few days later, I met someone else at one of the hostel parties. She was also a smoker, but I'd learned my lesson. This time things went well. We planned to set off together to some other part of Greece. It was a surprise when Doris returned after a few days away. It seemed that Mark wasn't as interested in her as she'd hoped. She heard that I was about to leave. She said "It's a shame you're leaving when I've just got back." I said "Yes." But I didn't think it was a shame at all.

I've never smoked a cigarette since.

#smoking

#Greece

#YouthHostel

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