What I did when they came for me.

Yesterday I worked a usual fourteen hour double. Made good cash, had a fine time. Such a good time that I decided to hang out with the crew afterwards. I don't hang out after work very often. I just worked with these people all friggin' day, so why do I wanna spend more time with them when I could be, you know, not seeing them. Besides that, I don't like alcohol very much (aside from needed medicinal uses, for the most part), and even if I did, why anyone spends seven bucks on a beer is beyond me.

No, when I feel festive, I smoke cigarettes. Plain, old, disgustingly awful "I can't believe I'm doing this after not smoking for six months" cigarettes.

But it's okay. I use a filter. I'm the only person I know who uses a filter. Yes, just like Hunter Thompson's, except mine is black.

Not only does it look cool, people mistake it for a one-hitter, which makes my coolness go up, even though only people who don't know what a one-hitter looks like could ever mistake a cigarette filter for one, and how cool can I be in the eyes of a person like that?

Still, I do like to smoke outdoors in the damnable cold when I feel like hanging out with people I've been working with for fourteen hours and honestly can't say I have much anything in common with outside of work itself. I have no love of sports and gossip, only life and society, movies and comic books.

(Janeane Garofalo, the patron saintess of comic book fans, once said that she found angsty, smoking, comic book guys to be really hot.

(To quote some on-line interview with Janeane:
How would you describe the guys who fall in love with you?
They're the guys you would find in comic-book stores.

(I, like so many others, need to find a Janeane Garofalo.)

(And yes, I did spell her name correctly.)

I had worn my uniform into work that morning, so my jacket was out in my car. I lit my cigarette and walked across the parking lot to my car to get my jacket (Everybody clear with this fine literary imagery?). My employers frown on employees smoking in full uniform, and I agree it looks bad, smoking being the social leper-dry of the new millenium, so I folded my apron in and up over my waist.

Good gosh, how to explain that simple act. Picture an apron that goes down to about mid-calf and wraps to the sides of your legs. A full length apron, right? You've seen pictures.

Instead of taking it off, which jumbles up all the crap in the pockets, I'll flip the outside edges toward the center, then fold the whole thing up so it's the size of a waiter wallet (which is safely protected along with my pens and wine key and not sliding around in the center of all that cloth).

The apron is still tied around my waist. I hold the bulk of the apron upright so it looks like I'm carrying a small cloth book over my stomach. And I can walk freely.

Seriously, it takes two seconds to do this. Much less time than to try to explain it, but there it is.

With cigarette in filter in mouth (hands free!), apron pressed to stomach, I made the long cross-parking lot trek to my car.

Once I got to my car (parked on the street), I went to the passenger side door. I didn't want to get in my car while smoking, you see. Sure, I don't mind a cigarette on occasion, but I don't want that smell in my brand new shiny car. Even when I was a smoker I never smoked in my own living spaces (after the age of twenty-two). There's a huge difference between the fine spark of a new Camel Light and the smell of an unwashed bowling alley.

I stood by my passenger side door at midnight and tried to undo my flipped up apron. The apron string had gotten a little tangled, so it took a few seconds to get the knot undone. Apron strings have been known to get tangled in belts and shirt tails, and that's what happened this time. I swear, it only took about ten seconds for me to fiddle with the apron strings to get the damn thing off.

But that ten seconds was enough time for the cop car to flash its lights, speed in front of me, and come to stop diagonally in front of my car, so as to prevent me from going anywhere at all in my parked, unmoving car, of which I was still not in. And standing on the passenger side, at that.

The cop gets out in true cop fashion, with his flashlight held up next to his head, pointing straight at me, apron strings in hand.

"You wanna tell me why you're urinatin' by your car?!" he asked.

It probably would have been bad to laugh at the stern man, so I did not.

"Actually, I was just taking off my apron. See?"

A pause. No one moved for a full two seconds. It would have been a nice picture.

"I stand corrected," he said. He got back in his car, drove down the street, and parked between concrete islands, to await any number of drunk college kids who still don't understand that cops like to hang out next to places where lots of people drink and there is no direct public transportation.

Even had I wanted to leave then, I would not have. I would have taken an interest in sports for at least twenty minutes, so as not to have to drive by that cop car at that time.

(Several of my coworkers have upcoming court dates for DUIs, all of which they got directly after leaving work. When costs are factored in, this makes brings the price of our draft beers jump from seven dollars to about four-hundred and twenty-two.)

I stowed my apron, put on my jacket, went back inside, put a little extra sugar in my iced tea (festive!), smoked another cigarette, made two new female acquaintences (both married), helped drunk people not fall down as they tried to leave, smoked another cigarette while holding open the door for more drunk people, and then I drove home.

And right this minute I'm chewing knock-off CVS brand nicotine gum, which I do kind of enjoy, but probably only because I'm one of the few people who read the instructions for nicotine gum and knows how to properly chew it. Smokers of the world, it really isn't that bad.

Although it looks really dumb sticking out of a black cigarette filter.