Solamente Uno.

I smoked my first cigarette at the ripe age of twenty. It was finals week, I was stressed and my current roommate and I decided to take a break and drive to the beaches of La Jolla circa ten pm on a Tuesday night in an attempt to escape the library and our looming ten-page research papers. We drove straight to the beach and immediately ditched the car and our shoes, opting for the nearest lifeguard tower and the feeling of the sand beneath our toes. "I'm bringing these, just in case" she said with uncertainty while closing the car door behind her. I rolled my eyes as I shut my own door, watching her stuff the small package in her pocket.

"These" were a pack of parliament lights - pfunks as we call them and in a matter of minutes, my disapproving eye-roll turned into an "okay fine, but only one". Only one just felt right in that moment, and as I sat there staring at the dark ocean and bright stars, puffing on my one cigarette and feeling a nicotine rush for the very first time, my friend stared at me in disbelief and said "I cannot believe you just did that".

She wasn't the first to try to get me to smoke. There were many before her and for some reason or another I had literally been denying the existence of cigarettes for years, following the rules and listening to the warnings of health teachers, my parents and my Aunt Melaine whose voice sounded like some sort of evil villain on account of being a chain smoker for nearly thirty years. It is unclear what it was exactly on that cool night in May that allowed me to take the plunge and rid myself of the long-standing convictions I had about smoking, but I let it all go on that beach and smoked, one and only one.

Three years later, and more cigarette's then either of us would ever like to admit, my roommate and I find ourselves incorporating the "only one" philosophy into daily life, namely that of life on Wednesdays. Here in the "real world", Wednesdays are both good and bad. On one hand the work week is halfway over and the weekend is that much closer, but a lot of the time we have come to find that Wednesdays can be somewhat lack-luster and looking ahead to two more days in the work week can be a real downer. Fortunately for us, not too long after moving to the mile-high city we "accidentally" discovered that the night life here mid-week is not too shabby. That being said, through a bit of trial and error (error being a few really terrible Thursday mornings) we have perfected the act of going out on Wednesday nights and have decided to keep things simple.

Thus, we have implemented a system that not only cures the mid-week blues, but allows for morning-after efficiency and a fully functioning Thursday. Remembering back to that fateful night on the beach, we have developed the "only one" concept into a rule to live by on Wednesdays here in Denver. Whether it be one drink, one smoke, one dance or even one of each, we oftentimes find ourselves beep bopping through the city streets midweek, relieving stress, trying out new happy hour spots and mingling with other young professionals who are looking for the same break in the work week that we are. This Wednesday way of life has led us to flip nights, charity galas, dive bars and networking events and has been the saving grace in what could have been a very mundane post-college weekly routine. It is simple, it is easy and like that night on the beach in La Jolla, it just feels right.

"I can't believe I just did that either" I remember saying to her as we slowly drug our feet back to the car after an hour spent soaking in the stars on the beach and savoring every last puff of the p-funk. Heading back to campus and back to the late night glow of our computer screens in the library, I could have never guessed then that we would both be here in this city now, sharing a house, a routine and every once in a while sharing one drink, one dance, and occasionally, when it just feels right, one cigarette.