TRUST ME, THEY KNOW

By: Matthew Terry

                I pulled into work today and came across a man who was standing outside his car smoking a cigarette.  I am guessing that this man is hiding his habit from someone.  Be it a wife, girlfriend, partner, roommate or such.  I am guessing this because the location he had chosen suggested that he was not patronizing the stores in which our plaza offers.  He was not there to do laundry, he was not picking up Fish and Chips, he was not there to bottle wine (because, obviously, I had yet to open the store).  He was a good ten yards from the building when the parking situation far from required such a distance.

                I do not intend to tattle on this man.  I am not offering up any kind of description of him or his very nice vehicle (more on that shortly).  In fact, I am only trying to help him by saying to him, and anyone else who is hiding cigarette smoking from someone, trust me, they know.

                I smoked for fourteen years.  I quit REGULARILY smoking nine years ago.  I smoke when I am on Cuban soil and I also tend to partake of cigarettes when I am working wrestling events as a ring announcer.  Take my word for it, there is no amount of hand cleanser, no amount of gum and no amount of spray on cologne that can mask the fact that you have sucked back a cigarette at some point in the past twelve hours.  How I know this is simple.  I have tried to mask that odor numerous times from my wife.  Notice I did not say that I have tried to hide smoking from my wife.  My wife knows that I tend to smoke at wrestling events and she absolutely hates it.  However, quitting was my choice (although by her request), and ultimately my wife cannot force me to stop.  That being said, I try and eliminate the odor the best I can before I return home, for her sake.  Believe me, I have tried everything in my powers to do so, but have failed every single time.

                Now, let us return to our subject outside the plaza.  Let us give him any benefit of the doubt we can.  Maybe he’s not able (notice I did not say “allowed”) to smoke inside the car.  I did mention it was a beautiful, perhaps even new, car in which he was smoking beside.  If that is the fact, then this man has a serious smoking problem of a different kind, when he cannot even make it to work before he needs to light up.  Maybe he was waiting for someone to meet him at the plaza and decided to have a smoke while he waited.  Well, from the ‘You needed to be there.’ file, he did not meet anyone.  In the time it took me to park and get out of my vehicle, I saw him toss away his cigarette and re-enter his vehicle.  Driving away before I even got inside the store.  Maybe he had already met someone, who was gone by the time you arrived and he was having a cigarette before he got into his car.  So, you’re basically saying he had sex in his car, said his goodbyes and was having a cigarette afterwards.  If so, he has a lot more than the smoking skeleton in his closet.

                Of course, these blogs are mostly entertainment.  Things like this are created and fermented by my imagination and the odds are usually pretty good that I am way off base.  I’m sure if I would have stopped and inquired why he needed to have a cigarette at that time and at that location, there may very well have been a reasonable explanation.  However, if not, and once again, if anyone out there is flattering themselves thinking that someone just doesn’t know.  Trust me, they know.