There comes a point in every relationship when the decision has to be made — do you make a commitment, or end things?
Sometimes, the situation is complicated by the fact that you know they're not good for you — however many good times you've had together — but somehow just can't get round to finishing with them.
I must admit, over the years, I've thought I should end the relationship, but have never quite had the determination to do so.
There's always some excuse that I think of to avoid making the painful break.
But as I get older, I realise the time has come. I need to make a decision. Either end it, or buy some gift to cement the relationship and reassure them of my serious intent.
And so the question arises, should I buy a proper, expensive, token of my esteem, namely, that is, a decent cigarette lighter?
Dunhill, perhaps, or Ronson. It would be a proud statement to the world: I am serious about the relationship I have with smoking.
When I was in my late teens, or early twenties, I read somewhere that so long as one gave up smoking by the time one was 35 (presumably assuming that one hadn't actually died from ghastly smoking related disease by then) it was almost as if one hadn't smoked at all, so I didn't bother to worry about it until my 35th birthday. At which point, it occurred to me, that I would still, in effect, be 35 364 days later, so that was that year's excuse.
Then I read that Sir Richard Doll, the Oxford epidemiologist who discovered the (alleged) link between smoking and lung cancer, carried on smoking until he was 37. Good enough for him, good enough for me, I thought (this may rather gloss over the point that it was only at that age he had linked smoking and cancer).
Now, though, that milestone is passed, too.
Forty, maybe, might be a good age to give up. Unless I can think of another excuse, that is ...