Getting caught smoking

As I have mentioned, when I turned 18, I bought a pack of menthol cigarettes and was hooked.  I did not smoke all that much, it started with just one on the way home from school because it would give you one hell of a buzz.  One time when I was getting out of the truck after just finishing the smoke, I just about fell on my ass.  This went on for some time and I think it was about March when I got caught.

I was driving through Wooster when I went by State Farm and there was my dad waiting to pull out on the same road I was on and I was right in the middle of flicking an ash out the window.  He looked right at me and it is at this point when all teenagers have to come up with stories on the fly.  Except in this case my dad was going to chase me down and catch my ass.  I hit the gas and took off and I saw him in the rear view take off out of the parking lot.  I got through a yellow light and he got stuck.

I drove home as fast as I could and when I got home my mom was waiting for me.  the best story I could come up with is that I had a straw I was chewing on and was throwing it out the window.  Better to litter than to smoke.  Chewing on a straw?  Seemed reasonable to me.  Unfortunately, he had already called her asking if she knew I was smoking.  of course I denied it when she asked me and she asked to smell my hands.  Busted.  I never thought about my hands smelling.  In the end, my dad did not even say anything about it.  I heard enough from my mom though.  You see when I was a kid, I was the one that always tried to get my dad to quit, telling him it was bad and she should not do it.  Over and over, year after year I bugged him and look, here I was 18 and smoking.

My smoking habit continued throughout college, although I hid it fairly well from my parents.  I would just not smoke around them.  I could come up with reason why I had to go out and have a cigarette and in reality, I really do not smoke all that much.  There were a few times when dad offered me a smoke as he always knew like on the way back from racing Nascar.  For some reason I always thought I had to hide it whereas my little brother just said fuck it and smoked.

Shawn