Stinking Like an Old Hippie

One tactic I'm using in this quit is the "Stink Like an Old Hippie" strategem.

I liberally apply patchouli or sandalwood to the pulse point on my wrists, and when I get the urge to smoke, I sniff a wrist and get instant summer of '76 flashbacks.

This helps because I didn't smoke in 1976, but I did wear patchouli. It's some kind of psychological thing.

Mind you, I love the smell of patchouli. I used to love it on the eighteen-year old girls I used to hang around with. (Of course, I would probably still love it on eighteen-year old girls. I mean, I might have given up smoking, but I haven't completely taken leave of my senses! But the only place I smell patchouli these days is on my own wrists. Which is a shame.)

I would love the sandalwood just as much, I'm sure, but in the bottle I have, it's so viscous it refuses to come out of the spout. Perhaps I should just take out the spout. We didn't need plastic spouts to control the flow of essential oils when I was a lad. If you got too much on you, well... nobody really noticed in the circles I moved in.

So. Joss-sticks. That's another thing. I've used up all the joss sticks I had. (By now you have this image, undoubtedly, of some guy with long, thinning grey hair, a white beard, a cheesecloth shirt and red loons, with cheap bangles on his wrist and a leather necklace with multi-coloured glass beads on it. If that's what you think, you would be very far from the mark, and you need to adjust your stereotypes accordingly.)

During the last week, when desperate (that is, all the time), I've burnt a joss stick and sucked in a good lungful of some exotic perfume. I can't tell you the flavour I'm afraid, as the joss sticks were given to me, sans packet, by a good friend. They were very nice. But as I say, they've all gone.

Now, where does one get joss sticks? When one is not in Totnes. I mean, if you're in Totnes, obtaining joss sticks is a cinch - and, most likely, de rigeur. I suppose I could drive over to Glastonbury, where there is bound (by civic edict, probably) to be a purveyor of joss sticks. Or Bath! I know precisely where to go to stock up on joss sticks there (unless that shop has closed - the one opposite Tumi, you know it?). But parking is an expensive nightmare just for the sake of a couple of quid's worth of stinky sticks.

I suppose one can resort to the wibblywobblyweb, but there is something... oh, I don't know, not quite right... about buying joss sticks from the web. They should be bought from a dark shop that also sells tie-dyed tee-shirts, indian shawls, books on Reiki, and, like, healing crystals, man.

Nonetheless, I have begun my exploration of net-based purveyors of exotic olfactory stimulants, and discovered that in my current state of quit jitters I probably need sandalwood (for uplifting and lightening my mood), lavender (for calming and stress relief), vanilla (for generally feeling good - and who wouldn't want to, hmm?) and Tibetan healing incense (for healing anxiety).

So perhaps Incense Man will yet get my custom. Because, let's face it, this AmbiPur Aromatic Wood candle just doesn't have the same punch as a good old sandalwood joss stick.