Smokers help each other delude themselves. I thought about this the other night when someone at the theater came up and said, “Wanna smoke?” with a big smile on her face.
The wording is deceiving. It’s spoken as if the asker is making you some sort of fabulous, generous offer. If she had come up to me and said, “Wanna beer?” there would have been a whole different meaning: she would be offering me a beer.
Not so with “Wanna smoke?” We all know what this really means: “Would you like to come outside and keep me company while I smoke? I will not, however, be providing you with a cigarette, so bring your own. C’mon, you’re a sad addict like me! You know you want to!” While we all understand that, for some reason, we still feel the need to couch it in a different sort of language.
So, you know, it’s really got me thinking. Mainly, it’s gotten me thinking that right now I’d really like a beer and a smoke.