Cheating

So I had my first phone interview with my smoking cessation counselor. I am participating in a study at the University of Pennsylvania. They contact me by phone to check on my progress. So here is how my one week checkup went:

Counselor: Hello. How is everything going?

Me: Good. So far so good.

Counselor: Have you had any adverse reaction to the patch?

Me: Um. No.

Counselor: No headaches? Nausea? Sleeplessness? Nervousness? Jitters? Exhaustion? Nightmares?

She then followed this up with several more symptoms that I would never want to suffer from. Some were embarrassing and I cannot bring myself to type them. Let's just say they involve bodily functions that I consider unmentionable.

Me: Um. No.

I'm glad they didn't go over any of these side effects prior to me putting the patch on. I'm sure then I would have suffered from them all. Phew.

Counselor: So how many cigarettes have you had in the last week?

Me: None.

Pause.

Counselor: I'm sorry?
Me: None. No cigarettes.

Double pause.

Counselor: None?

Me: That is correct.

Counselor: Wow.

Me: Wow?

Counselor: I mean wow. That's great. Pretty unusual, but great.

OK. Now I looked it up because I thought maybe I was confused. I headed over to www.dictionary.com and plugged in "quit". Ironically, the very first things that pop up are two links. The first is to KickYourCraving.com that says "You Won't Quit Smoking". How did they know I was trying? Bastards. You don't know me. Don't tell me what I can and cannot do. The second link was to When-Will-You-Die.com. They wanted to let me know that I will die if I do not "quit" smoking. Ummm. Gee. Thanks for the unsolicited advice. I never believed the Surgeon General, but you have convinced me. Leave me alone. I was just looking for a definition.

Anyway. Dictionary.com has twelve definitions of the word "quit". The first is "to stop, cease, or discontinue." I would take that to mean "I quit smoking, ergo, I do not smoke cigarettes any longer."

The second definition is "to depart from; leave". Possibly as in "I quit my sanity since I quit smoking." I kind of combined the first two definitions in one sentence. Sweet. I am so multi-talented.

The third definition is "to give up or resign; let go; relinquish." Soooo "I quit my status as a smoker since I no longer smoke cigarettes."

There are nine more listed. I went through those too, but nothing led me to think that "quit" meant "smoke". It would not make sense to say that "I quit smoking, so I had a cigarette on Tuesday and two on Thursday." Why oh why was my cessation counselor so surprised that I had not smoked? Am I quitting incorrectly? Am I doing it wrong? Why did you tell me to quit and then expect me to smoke? I wanna I wanna I wanna smoke. But I QUIT. I found this to be very frustrating and frustration really brings on the cravings. So...next time, please do not sound so surprised when I say "none". Thankyouverymuch.