I've been on nicotine patches for two and a half years now, they seem to work, I don't know, I can't really tell, I mean, I still smoke, I still have a cigarette now and then, well, maybe five a day, so I don't know. I'm probably too close to it to tell, you know, like, you need to be able to step back from a situation to really get a good, uh, good, uh, overall look at the picture, right, and so like I'm right in the middle so it's probably not up to me to judge. I just always thought that, you know, nicotine patches weresupposed to be a finite thing, right? Nicorette gives you the power to quit, that's what they always say on the commercials, I mean, the things are fucking expensive, you know, sixty bucks for a box of them, I mean, shit, if I'm going to be addicted to nicotine, right, I should just say fuck it and go back to cigarettes. That's what I tell myself sometimes, you know, late at night in my apartment by myself, that's what I say to myself. I don't really talk to myself, I mean just like that's what one part of my brain is saying to the other part of my brain while I'm sitting there in my apartment totally fuckin' jonesing for a cigarette, I mean, what's the fucking point? Okay, I mean, yes, I do talk to myself sometimes when I'm in my apartment by myself, but who doesn't, you know? Well, I don't mean that literally, I mean, how can we tell exactly how many people talk to themselves in their apartments alone, we're not there, right? That's the definition of being alone. Except for, you know, if you like wired everybody's houses like some sort of CIA police state, you know, we're peeping in everybody's windows and we're videotaping all our neighbors, right, you know, why can't we all just get along, yeah, you know, you know. It's like, fucking, like Big Brother or something, you know, like that book, you know, that one book, the book with all the, you know, like Big Brother and the videoscreens and the rats and all that shit. I read that book in high school, well, I kinda read that book in high school, skipped around a lot, just sort of, you know, read enough to get through the tests, actually that's when I actually started smoking, now that I think about it, I started smoking right when I started that book, this guy named Tab started me smoking, well, his name wasn't really Tab, it was Mark or Mike or Matt or fuckin' Mitzi or something, I don't know, it doesn't matter, we all called him Tab 'cause he was the one with the fuckin' tabs, know what I mean? Fuckin' tabs, right on. And the teachers would ask why we called him Tab and we'd say 'cause he was always drinking Tab soda all the time, which incidentally, he was always drinking Tab soda all the time, but I think it was because so our lame cover story would look right, I mean, teachers are fuckin' idiots, right? I mean, there was so much shit you could get away with in my high school, I spent half my life in high school fuckin' stoned and the other half tripping my balls off, right? And look at me, I got a degree, you know, doesn't take a fuckin' rocket scientist to get a high school diploma, just show up to class every day and don't make a scene, just sit in the back and slouch down real low and just keep your mouth shut and they'll just pass you right on through, teachers are so fuckin' stupid, you know? But, like, Tab, right, Tab was the one who got me smoking for the first time, Marlboro Lights, he always had these, I'll never forget this, as long as I live, Tab always had like a thousand empty crumpled up packs of Marlboro Lights on the floor of his Nova, shit, this 74 primer gray Nova, we'd just fuckin' drive around, we'd get high as a kite and just drive around, cruise the movie theatre parking lot on Saturday nights, try to pick up a couple of girls, you know, we never would of course, we weren't big jocks, we weren't big football players, we were just a couple of the freaks driving around in this 74 Nova blasting Dark Side of the Moon out of Tab's fuckin' 17-inch woofers, yeah, that's right, these fuckin' kick-ass 17-inch woofers, it was crazy man, his stereo took up like half the back seat and you'd turn it up to like, just like 7 and the fuckin' windows would shake, you could feel the fillings in your teeth just rattle and Tab would just look over at me and just nod his head and smile and give me another Marlboro Light. Well, I mean, sometimes some girls would go party with us, right? 'cause Tab was fuckin' hooked up, right? I mean, the dude was amazing, he could just get like anything under the sun, I don't know how he did it, man, he could get you pot or speed or acid or shrooms or crank or rush or coke or x or payote or mescaline, I mean, the only thing he'd ever refuse to get was angel dust cause he was always talking about how that shit would mess you up, and he was right, I guess, I never really knew anyone who did angel dust but we heard about this guy, this dude we used to party with and Jack had said that Mark had told him about Brian being at a party with this guy and the guy just totally fuckin' flipped out on dust one night at this party and just like fuckin' like picked up the refrigerator with his own two hands, just fuckin' hoisted this seven foot tall refrigerator into the air and fuckin' everyone freaked out and I guess like the cops had to come or something and they fuckin' shot him like three times or something before the dude finally calmed down. But I mean, you couldn't really trust anything Jack would tell you, Jack was full of shit most of the time, he was always talking about how he went out to L.A. in the 70s and got totally wasted with Kristy McNichol at some party and fucked her in the back of a pickup and we were like, whatever, that dude, you never knew when he was blowing shit up your ass, which is why I liked hanging out with Tab, cause you know, Tab may have been a total waste case, right, and he was, don't get me wrong, Tab could hardly fuckin'...well, you know what I'm saying, he could hardly fuckin' get through life, but the thing was, the thing was that Tab would never steer you wrong. Tab never lied and he never stole and he never tried to sell you a bag of stink weed or anything, I mean, Tab was right on, you know? He was right on, which is why I hung out with him. Yeah, just like cruising the mall, dropping off bags, fuckin' blasting Zeppelin on summer nights, you know, man, like, what happens to our youth, you know? Where does it all go? One day you're fuckin' cruising around, time of your life, party every night, and the next day you sell coke to the wrong fuckin' guy and bang, you got a bullet in your chest at 22. I mean, who gets a bullet in their chest at 22? Tab never did anything wrong, you know, he never caused anyone harm, he'd always give me a dime bag on spec, he was that kind of guy, you know? Had the high score on Galaga for five years straight, he was that kind of guy. And then all of sudden they're putting him in the ground and man, the party's over, you know what I mean, and the next thing I know I'm waking up and I'm 28 years old and I'm the night manager at Kwikee Mart and I've been wearing goddamn nicotine patches for two and a half years. Where does the time go? Anyway, here's your receipt. I need you to sign next to the X here. Yeah, you have a good day too. Come again.