“Mom, today at school I told everyone in my class about your smoking.”

“What?” 

“In health. We learned about keeping our lungs healthy. You’re not supposed to smoke anything.”

“I don’t.”

“You smoke every day. And I know dad does sometimes.”

“That’s not true. What makes you think your dad and I smoke? We’ve never smoked.”

“But I see you do it.”

“When?”

“Every night after dinner. You smoke the big fat green one. And sometimes Dad smokes when he cooks on the grill. It’s a bad idea. You can get serious diseases from it and everything.”

“Tell me what smoking is.”

“It’s when you breathe in smoke.”

“The word smoking can mean lots of things, but at school your class was talking about staying healthy. Your teacher was probably telling everyone it’s not a healthy choice to smoke cigarettes.”

“Oh.”

“Were you paying attention the entire time?”

“Most of the time.”

“What smoke did you see Mom and Dad breathing in?”

“You breathe in the big, fat green candles on the table. Daddy breathes in the smoke smell from the grill.”

“That’s just smelling things. Not smoking. Did you explain you were talking about candles and grills when you told everyone that your Dad and I smoke?”

“No.”

“Did you say ‘big, fat green one?'”

“Yes.”

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What are we having for dinner?”

 

©2017 Chrissy Winslow – All Rights Reserved

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We never got any calls from her school that year, so the staff member or teacher who presented the health lesson must have figured everything out 🙂