Butt of the Joke

12/7/05


I had a milestone the other day. A moment that’s important and telling in any smoker’s life, albeit it came a bit late in my career of consuming vaporized tobacco. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m talking about that first time a complete stranger decides to impart the wisdom that smoking is bad for you.

Now I’ve been smoking about a pack a day for some seven years now, (which means I’ve consumed the equivalent of seven cups of tar over the years,) and had always thought it strange that I’d never been accosted by some supposedly well-meaning citizen concerned for the health of my lungs. I was beginning to think that maybe I just wasn’t lovable enough for someone who will never see me again and has no bearing on my life to butt in and with a nickel’s worth of free advice. It went like this:

I was minding my own business, as is my wont, on lunch break from my grinding job of sitting in an office chair and coming up with strange and creative ways to pretend to be working. I had just procured a delicious foot long sandwich (a Club, if you’re the type who needs verisimilitude,) from Subway. On my way back through the parking lot I lit a cigarette. I make the distinction that I was in the parking lot just in case you were laboring under the mistaken impression that I was sparking up inside someplace inappropriate like a cancer ward or some woman’s vagina. As I passed through the lot a gentleman crossed my path, turned to me and said,

“You should really quit that, you know.”

I, being a lightning-witted and intellectually sharp individual said, “Huh?”

“You should quit,” he repeated, then said something I was even less prepared for. He said, “I’m going to a funeral for a friend of mine that died from those.”

By this time I had stopped walking and was staring at this fellow back over my shoulder with an expression on my face that must have approximated a chronically depressed armadillo asked to “solve for x.” Several responses bubbled up inside my brain but none made it to the surface before my health angel got into his SUV and drifted out of my life forever.

I walked, somewhat dumbfounded, back to my office to eat my sandwich and mull this over. Several things occurred to me as I masticated my turkey, ham and roast beef. In no particular order they were as follows:

Did that guy just tell me that he was on his way to a funeral? Upon reflection I found this seemingly sincere assertion difficult to believe. No matter how casual a funeral I doubt someone wearing a t-shirt and baseball cap expected to receive a warm reception upon paying last respects in such a get-up. Then I thought, Did that guy just lie to me about going to a funeral? Why would he do that? This seems like the behavior of a seriously disturbed individual, I mean if he was lying about that, how can I believe anything in this world? It surely would be an amazing coincidence if my ball cap-wearing angel took time out of his busy mourning to advise me that a close friend of his had kicked the bucket for the very same affliction. Perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume by “going to a funeral,” he meant that he may attend one in the foreseeable future for…someone. Yeah…

Then it occurred to me, Wait, that well-meaning patron didn’t actually say that I should stop smoking. Was it possible that I had misconstrued his meaning entirely? He never actually said the word “cigarette,” nor did he make any motion to the cancer stick burning between my fingertips. Maybe his friend died of too many submarine sandwiches and the fellow was warding me away from the dangers inherent in luncheon meats. Or walking; perhaps his quickly becoming more hypothetical “friend” and the supposed “funeral” was due to bipedal locomotion of some kind. Maybe the guy was attacked by a rabid squirrel when crossing a fast food parking lot.

So as you can see the questions abound and I am left wondering just what I’m supposed to worry about here. To be safe I should stop smoking, eating sandwiches or crossing parking lots; especially all three in conjunction with each other. If by some miracle my knight in shining denim happens to read this I would appreciate a follow up phone call to clarify my concerns as I’ve now convinced myself I shouldn’t leave the house under my own power or stare too long at a fast food commercial. It does leave a lot of free time to catch up on smoking though.