Until The Twelfth Of Never

 Some important advice: It was, "Always," no wait, it was "Never..." No. It was "Always take a litter bag in your car. And if it gets full, you can just throw it out the window." That was the wisdom that Steve Martin once left an audience at the end of what is now a relic of a standup routine. It came to me as I prepared to write this blog about the thin line between Always and Never.

Actually, there is this wide gulf that tends to separate those two which is "sometimes," but Always and Never do seem to occupy opposite sides of one concept of time. I do not live in the gray swirls of "sometimes" very much. I tend to stick to the shores of Always and Never. It makes things so much tidier, orderly. 

For example, at age fifty-eight, I have never used Chap-Stick. I have never had a cup of coffee. I have never smoked a cigarette. These three little factoids about yours truly have entertained dozens of friends and acquaintances over the years. As the pages fall off the calendar and the decades begin to pile up, they have become a pretty substantial conversational gambit. There are plenty of people who used to smoke, but have quit. Or those who have been instructed by their doctor not to drink coffee. They stopped. And some of them did so Cold Turkey, which is impressive. But they used to. And I can relate, because I had my own experience with drink and drugs that pushed them all off the "all the time" table into the dustbin of Never. If you do something a lot, like Always, turning it into a Never takes considerable willpower. So much so that industries have grown up to make it easier: Self-help groups and nicotine gum and wheat-based caffeine-free coffee substitutes. This allows for a sub-strata of the Never-world known as Not Anymore. 

And don't think I haven't been tempted. Not myself necessarily, but by others. The Chap-Stick thing especially. Blessed with very efficient pores, my lips don't tend to get chapped all that often, but on the infrequent occasions which they do come up a little raw, I have on numerous occasions been badgered about smearing some of that smelly wax on my mouth. I can't say that it always happens, but it is with alarming frequency that I am asked to defend my Chap-Stickless existence to those already trapped within its spell. It is during these moments of confrontation that I feel compelled to point out the science: Using Chap Stick makes you need more Chap Stick. I never had much in the way of peer pressure to take up smoking, and I confess that I feel socially awkward with all the ways that coffee has become a social point of interaction. 

But still, I always say, "No, thank you." 

Always.