Imprinted

Happy Boxing Day. I'm sure it will come as a total shock that I wouldn't be caught dead within a mile of a retailer today.

It's funny, the things that lurk just below our conscious mind just waiting for some trigger to let them out. When I was a kid, Saturday night was hamburger night and it was the one night we could chow down in the living room while watching TV. Mom would make Lipton burgers and "Get Smart" would be on the tube. Years later, if I see the opening to "Get Smart" I can taste and smell those hamburgers. A Christmas present triggered a similar, but not so benign response in me last night.

This winter has been warm, but exceptionally dry. One of the things I needed was a humidifier for my tiny little house. Mom came through for me and I set it up next to the central heat vent in my house. It works great and is amazingly quiet, so no problem, right?

Well, no problem until I sat down at my computer desk and got this incredible craving for a cigarette. I've had them before, but this was really intense. It wasn't until I caught myself reaching for a non-existent cigarette burning in a non-existent ashtray that I realized what was going on. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the water vapor from the humidifier curling into the air. It was just like when I used to have a smoke going in an ashtray off to the side of the keyboard and that was what was triggering the craving.

I put a chair between the humidifier and me and the craving passed fairly quickly, but how's that for freaky? Like I said, funny the things from the past that can pop back at you.