The Nag Must Be Serviced.He smiles, turns half away from me and starts cleaning up and
rearranging his instruments. "Okay," he says. "Do you smoke?"
I admit that I do.
"Don't," he informs me. "Hold off as long as you can. No pointy foods.
No nachos." He continues on. The list of don'ts is brief but fairly
conclusive. No booze, no hot beverages, no cigarettes -- my
three-legged pyramid.
Still, I am a bad patient. I light up a cigarette as soon as I'm out
of sight of his front door, my jaw packed with bloody, salty, wet
gauze. I'd been in the chair for almost three hours -- I need it. I
tell myself that I'll just have the one, smoking carefully, then lay
off.
I light my second about twenty minutes later, having held out as long
as I could.
Right outside the door, I light a cigarette.
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