No Smoking!

The pickings have been plentiful on the dating circuit lately, but one in particular has to have her story told. Nothing has changed as far as I'm concerned, same pictures and silly anecdotes in my personality profile, but for some crazy reason, I'm getting alot more attention than usual. Maybe the ladies of Phoenix are trying to "buddy up" before Christmas. Putting up all those decorations aren't easy work for a lady, some have to crawl up in their attics to reach their goodies.

So I'm doing a pretty good job of minding my own business Sunday afternoon, watching the game, when an email warning comes that Gabby wants to meet me. Gabby, now that's an attractive name! So I click and screen down and jump through the identification hoops to see a perfectly lovely looking lady, about 49 years of age. She's tall and thin and pretty. Got to be something wrong.......oh there it is, she smokes! Smokers are in a class of their own. This one says, occasionally. I take that to mean that she breathes regular air between drags on her cigarette. I reply that she looks great to me, but she smokes and that's a deal breaker for me, sorry. She replies that most men feel that way, but she only smokes about 10 a day.

My thoughts go immediately to Sherry, my old high school friend that came to AZ to visit this month. She was still a smoker, but I never smelled it on her and if she had not told me she still smoked, I'd have never known. She never smoked in front of me or complained that she needed a cigarette. So I decided, in my imminent ignorance, that smoking must not be as bad as I remember. I send Gabby a teaser, that says, "If you want to know how I quit after 30 years of 3 packs a day, as me."? She bit. I replied that it's too long to write, if she wants to know, she'll just have to call me and I give her my number. She switches into the "not so desperate mode" and doesn't reply for a few hours, saying ha , very funny and that she may just call. Duh! That's why I gave her my number. Around 9 PM, she says she'll call tomorrow and I just about lose interest. It seems my natural sex drive quits around bedtime (not a good time for that, huh?) She started emailing me about 7 AM, wanting to know what I'm doing. In my sleep, I don't reply. She writes again about 9:45 and tells me all about her loss during the storm 2 weeks ago and can I give her my number again......please. ("Still sleeping, sorry".) I get up around 10 and see the emails I just mentioned and wonder why in the world I ever gave this lady my number, because the excitement of Sunday evening disappeared in my sleep..

In my confusion, I'm still thinking her 10 cigarette a day habit is a piece of cake for a 3 pack guy like me. I drink coffee and try to get into the mood to talk to a stranger in the AM. At 10:45 AM, my phone rings and it's a call from Gabby to learn my secret of how to quit smoking, but there really isn't any trick. It just takes determination and devotion to live. My phone plays the Blackberry song and I answer on what would probably be about the 3rd or 4th ring and guess what? Al Green is calling me! I say hello and Al Green replies HELLO...........DUTCH, with the deepest, raspiest, roughest smoker's voice I ever heard.... All I could say is, "I know who this is", laughing in my voice.. She makes the mistake of asking how and I tell her the smoker's voice is a dead giveaway. I think that's when it first went bad for her. I recovered from her shockingly deep voice and started making her laugh. Whenever she would get caught off balance, she would let go of a HARDY HAR HAR HAR... back slapping laugh, with her raspy horrible smoker's voice. Put a fork in me, I'm done! At some point Al Green mentions she had to get the gym, a lot of good that was gonna do, so I said I had to be someplace too... We hung up and I didn't bother saving her number. Yeah, smoking is a real deal breaker! I never did tell her my secret to quit smoking.............Don't put them in your mouth!