Iced tall half-sweet light iced iced coffee (with milk)

There are hot summer days when my addiction to caffeine taps me urgently on the shoulder, as though having missed some part of a movie and dying to recover the lost dialogue.

"What did he say?"
"He said, 'you're next,' to the other guy."
"I don't get it."

And then I sigh, turning around in my seat, and I report with contempt:

"He's implying that he knows that the main guy, the spy, is in on it.  And that he's probably going to get killed."
"Ohhh.  Why is he going to get killed?"

And if someone hasn't shushed us by now, the moment is certainly at hand.  I will shift uncomfortably in my seat and whisper sternly,

"I don't know! Nobody knows yet.  Pay attention!"

But my addiction just blinks behind me and says unapologetically, "I can't.  I'm fucking exhausted."

And at this point in the metaphor, I careen into the nearest Starbucks, recite the redundant incantation in the title, fork over twenty bucks and return to my addiction with a plastic cup covered with condensation.  I even put the straw in it for him.

"Here," I whisper, "now shut the fuck up."

And though he usually slurps the ice way longer than he needs to, the sound of melting ice and air hissing through a straw is preferable to the sibilant whispers in the dark and purposeful jabs on my shoulder.  Infinitely so. 

This is why I don't sit next to my addictions.  They are always so desperate for my attention.

Still smoking

Recent research has described the hazards of third-hand smoke. Being that smoking is our second-favourite form of slow motion suicide (after popping crank (or ice, or tina, or shabu)) we have decided to provide for you, gentle reader, an ordinal catalogue of the degrees of danger of this decadent and deliciously enjoyable drug.

(We have also formed a commitment to the first person plural.)

The degrees of smoking:

1st hand smoke: breathing in smoke from a cigarette.
2nd hand smoke: passively inhaling vapours in a smoke filled environment.
3rd hand smoke: coming in contact with smoke residue in furniture and clothing
4th hand smoke: shaking the hand of a smoker
5th hand smoke: breathing in second hand smoke through a HEPA filter
6th hand smoke: eating a dish prepared by a smoker
7th hand smoke: eating a dish prepared by a former smoker
8th hand smoke: giving oral sex to a smoker
9th hand smoke: enjoying a hot tub or sauna session with a smoker
10th hand smoke: reciting poetry including the words "smoke", "cigarette", or "nicotine"
11th hand smoke: catching an unlit cigarette in your mouth
12th hand smoke: engaging in intercourse with a smoker
13th hand smoke: holding a pen in your mouth as if it were a cigarette
14th hand smoke: smoking a cigarette through a straw four miles long
15th hand smoke: having a dream where you are a smoker
16th hand smoke: eating tobacco flavoured ice cream

The list goes on really. Further down:

37th hand smoke: getting a handjob from someone who just quit smoking three months ago

And:

134th hand smoke: leaving a voicemail for a former second hand smoker

And obviously:

283rd hand smoke: licking the bottom of a bus shelter.

Tobacco-caused diseases of the heart and blood vessels kill more than 17 000 people a year in Canada

Another strange interaction between Harvey and the portly store owner

Miranda: Just so you know, we're having a sale on mustard.
Harvey: Oh, thanks, but I'm trying to quit.
Miranda: You're trying to quit... mustard?
Harvey: It has an unforgiving hold on me. It's yellow cocaine.
Miranda: Well, you do tend to buy a lot. But are you sure you need to quit?
Harvey: Enabler! I have a problem. Why can't you respect that?
Miranda: It's buy two get one free.
Harvey: I'll take twelve.

Eight word poetry

One line four words
The next four also

Don't revise don't edit
Just spit it out

A basic day make
Feed death drink eat

Splatter sauce screen door
Dinner aroma reunion picnic

Summer does fall into
Winter will spring away

The tempo of retox
Is come is gone

A moving living room
With airbags and belts

Racism is a way
Of turning back pages

Drugs are really only
Lonely is an excuse

The boyfriend is lost
But she is too

My addiction saves lives
When I torch beehives

Corruption is like friction
And friction like morality

Last year I wasted
Like I'm doing now

Eight short words can't
Even hold my plight

Our addictions

"Our addictions," he began, "are what stop us from being real people."

The rest of the group sat quietly in the circularly arranged folding chairs, listening to the counsellor speak.

"They are like," and he scanned the air for a point of comparison, "a rock tethered to our ankle, holding us dead in our tracks. What we must learn to do is cut that rope."

There were nods of recognition as he emphasized those last three words. One man in the circle looked up and cleared his throat. His chair screeched slightly as he rose to his feet. His dark eyes drooped. The group leaned their heads toward him to hear him speak.

"Actually, addiction isn't like that at all. An addiction," he said, moving his eyes around the circle, "is a like a masterpiece. A work of art that you can't stop staring at. They're beautiful. That's the problem: there isn't any rope to cut, and you'll never find it."

* * *

Harvey's body heaved the pallet truck across the factory floor. The sound of his boots against the cold concrete echoed through the dark and empty warehouse. With a robotic sense of grace, he manoeuvred the pallet truck under a skid of freshly-boxed toys, pumped the machine up with a grunt, and began the tedious walk back to the shipping area.

In a quiet lonely job such as Harvey's it was easy to succumb to the monotony. But Harvey did not mind. Over the months, his actions evolved into basic instinct, almost robotic you could say. And as his mind floated away from the demands of moving boxes of new toys from point A to point B, the world inside the toy factory became easily divisible, organizable and comprehensible.

It took exactly two pumps of the truck to lift each pallet to an acceptable height to move across the floor without dragging. It was approximately 415 steps from rear wall of storage to the delivery door. Harvey passed exactly 16 steel pillars, two fenced gates, and 32 hanging light fixtures on each trip.

Each skid was roughly 1200 lbs, except for the deliveries that went out on Fridays which were nearly 1800 lbs. The weight was tolerable, but on Fridays, like tonight, the heavy skids always drew his attention to the lip.

It always startled him whenever he encountered the lip. Almost exactly halfway between storage and the delivery garage there was a slight protrusion in the otherwise perfectly flat warehouse floor. At the meeting point of two cold concrete slabs, there was a slight bump, a discontinuity, which would halt Harvey as he dragged his pump truck. Light loads would glide over easily with a slight tug. But the heavy loads of Fridays would come to a complete stop. And invariably, he would have to grunt and pull the stopped pump truck over the lip and continue to deliver his goods.

Tonight was another Friday and Harvey had been moving skids for three hours. His mind was often absent when he dragged the pump truck through the factory and he knew the route by heart. His mind had clicked off 200 steps when he noticed a slight bump as he dragged his cart. He stopped.

Letting go of the handle Harvey walked back to investigate the bump. It was of course, the tell tale lip. This time however, it did not stop the pallet mover in its tracks. It caused only a slight murmur in Harvey's path.

Harvey got down on his hands and knees to investigate. The light was dim in the factory late at night except for halogen lamps far up overhead. As he moved toward the crack, a gleam of factory light followed him to the cleavage on the floor. He slowly slid his hand against the cold floor. He pressed his fingers to the crack and felt the ridge that had stopped him dead so many Friday nights before. It was hard and rocky, like the blade of a stone knife. And for the first time, Harvey noticed precisely how beautiful it looked under the dim factory lights.