The Wretcheder One Is...

I’m calling off the Johnny-smoking contest, and here’s why:

Well, the short answer is that he did start smoking again, almost immediately, but I didn’t know it when he did and by the time I found out he didn’t remember anymore exactly when it was he'd taken that first drag.

The medium answer is that almost as soon as I announced the contest I felt bad. I’ve been neglecting this – my little corner of the international series of tubes – for months now, and I popped back in on Ash Wednesday to make some Snidely Whiplash bet over a pact between my husband and his God regarding an addiction that he (the husband, not the god) has had for thirty-some-odd years? Nice. Besides, he wasn’t smoking much: only one or two cigarettes a day, even at the pub – if you choose to believe that, which I do. Because I’ll tell you what: my husband and I may not be the brightest bulbs on any tree, we may occasionally (okay, regularly) do some seriously asshole shit together and apart, and we may each have our own share of (self- or otherwise) destructive vices – but both of us always fess up when faced with our failures, and we neither of us ever, ever lie. (Unless we absolutely have to. Like to save a life or something.) So the end of the medium story is I believe that he was trying – not to mention denying himself the other dozen or two daily cigarettes to which his scorched lungs have grown accustomed through the years. Plus (and this is no small thing) he wasn’t smoking in the house at all.

But you know me, right? You know that there’s a longer story coming? One that’s going to go around a few bends, up and down a few hills, and probably get lost at least a once or twice along the way? One that has embarrassing things in there, things about what a horrible person I am, what a drunken Irish dolt Johnny can be, and maybe – just maybe – something stupid regarding the house?

Yeah. Good. Okay. So long as we understand each other.

Unfortunately, I accidentally touched some Lidocaine and my fingers are rapidly going numb, so I can’t begin to tell the story now. You’ll have to tune in tomorrow – and the next day, and the next – though I will say, so you don't have to lose any sleep or anything: you’ll understand about the Lidocaine in the end.

Oh, and be sure to pee before you head on back, because it’s going to be a long and bumpy ride. So bumpy, in fact, that I guarantee there will be at least two broken bones before it’s over.

Maybe three.

(Plus one newly and at least temporarily smoke-free Leprechaun...)