A Smoke and a Joke

On Thursday Annie Laurie had an optometrist appointment because her vision is alarmingly poor. Before the actual exam, the assistant asked Annie a few questions about her health. She asked about her vision, if she had any health problems, if she had heart trouble, and if she had diabetes. Then she came to the question about smoking. The assistant said, "I'm not even going to ask you if you smoke because I already know you don't." And Annie Laurie, not missing a beat, said, "Actually, I do. I'm a smoker." Then we all burst out laughing.

Amazingly enough, that same night, Paper Moon was on TV. The Littles thought it was shocking and hilarious that Tatum O'Neill smoked in the movie, and Annie said it looked like she'd been smoking her whole life. Then Jordan came home and saw the movie and said, "Is this the movie where that little girl smokes?"

When Jordan was in 4th grade his class had to write a letter to their parents for Back To School Night. At the end of Jordan's letter he had drawn an arrow directing us to turn the letter over. On the back it said, "Does your mother know you smoke?" I wrote back that yes she does.

Mother is well aware that I enjoy smoking, a clean, white crayon.

If you've never smoked, won't smoke, and will never smoke, then smoking is funny. Otherwise, it's not. But on Thursday, when Annie said she was a smoker, it was. We did, after that however, have to have a talk about never smoking, and that in our family smoking means only one thing: A joke, a good joke.