Nicotine, that bastard.

That ghoulish little goblin that scurries around inside the head of every smoker.

You can feel the hot, constant rush of his breath, the stale mint musk of his menthol-laced whisper hitting your eardrum as he implores you to take another drag:

"You can't drink a beer and not have a cigarette," he chides.

"You can't eat hot wings or 49-cent tacos doused with fire sauce without enjoying the smooth, meal-completing flavor of that satisfying butt," he giggles.

"You can't wake up in the morning, fall asleep at night, walk down the street, sit on a bench, make a road trip, write a term paper or complete any daily task without including that fresh, crisp, fulfilling, break-providing, keep-ya-going tobacco," he screams.

Nicotine has you in his yellow-fingered clutch.

You are his slave. You have become the Charlie Murphy to Nicotine's Rick James, and as you fall down on your knees at his mercy again and again, you hear his favorite joke:

"What did the 5,000 carcinogens say to the lungs? Cancer!"

I'm Nicotine, bitch.

And this is whom I have become -- Nicotine's bitch.

I can't shake it.

I know how bad it is for me.

After smoking for almost 10 years now, I know that my lungs must be as black as asphalt, that I have trouble breathing after two flights of stairs, that I smell like a combination of cat pee and your grandma's attic when I come back in from a cigarette break.

I know that after smoking about a pack a day in those 10 years, I have contributed roughly 73,000 cigarette butts to our storm drains and landfills.

Face it, I am a bad person and a sinner.

But, I just can't seem to quit. This is my last semester, and it started out like all the others.

I was going to beat Nicotine's ass, flick him to the curb and start working out so that I could look like Colin Farrell by the time summer came around. However, as I write this, there is still a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, it's pushing 80 degrees outside, and my gut is looking more like Colin Quinn's than Colin Farrell's.

So, because it seems impossible that I will ever kick this deadly habit, I have come up with a rationalization that any of you smokers out there are free to use.

Look at it this way. Maybe all of us smokers aren't the bad ones. Maybe it's all the Tony Robbinses, Jack LaLannes and Mari Winsors of the world who constitute the real evildoers.

I mean, are we absolutely sure that Richard Simmons is even a human being? Anyway, you can really never know for sure who's going to end up on top.

For instance:

Let's say I'm able to squash the demon, Nicotine, like he was nothing more than a pesky mosquito. I make it through the Seven Circles of Hell/Withdrawal and come out saved on the other side.

I am born again.

I begin to look healthy; I eat healthy foods; I cut down on drinking; I start to run 27 miles a day.

I now look like Colin Farrell (or for the women out there playing along with this scenario, you can use Jennifer Garner). I become a model, the picture of a health-magazine cover's perfection, and get to date the celebrity hottie of my choice -- this will be Katie Holmes because this is my story, and 'eff Chris Klein.

Then, as I am running across Curtin Road in the middle of my new healthy regimen, I receive a call from Katie, look down to answer it, and am flattened by the Blue Loop. Instantly, I find myself face-to-face with God.

And to my infinite surprise and horror, Nicotine is perched smugly on his shoulder. God cracks a yellow-toothed, told-you-so grin, snaps his fingers to light a fine Cuban cigar, and Nicotine has the last laugh as the all-mighty gives me the thumbs down -- perfect abs, clean lungs and all.

I am sent straight to Hell, realizing along the way that the old George Burns movies weren't so far off. God is a smoker, and Dennis Leary is the second coming.

So, smoke 'em if you got 'em.

And if you don't got 'em, you better get to your nearest convenience store, buy three cartons, say 10 Our Fathers and 20 Hail Learys and pray that Nicotine and God forgive you for your sins.