Changing Days, Changing Ways?

My Love has been nagging me again – to stop smoking! I seem to have a chest infection, maybe bronchitis, or OCD or COPD or something like that! She found a checklist on-line and had me sit down and tick the boxes, and to be truthful, which meant ticking more boxes than I'd rather – oh, soddit! After Church on Sunday, once we all got out in the sun, I was more aware than ever of the number of people – both, I might add, not just the men – seeming to be smoking pipes without bowls
and I had a chat with our retired gravedigger. Tam was never without a ciggie behind his ear: he worked a rotation – when the one behind his ear went between his lips, a new one went behind his ear - and in all the time I have known him, from girl to woman, that has been his practice even on winter mornings but yesterday, I noticed he was holding one of those vapour devices and every now and again taking a puff at it – and there was nothing behind his ear! So I took the bull by the horns and asked him straight out if he had stopped and for how long: “two weeks, Reverend,” he's always very formal, though when I was young he called me Miss Teri, never Theresa, or just Teri, which would have sounded too personal to him, he always called us Miss and then a shortened version of our names if there was one, which I suppose produced a combination of distance and friendliness. That's what started me using Miss Teri Woman as my username when I started in the internet, particularly as it sounds like Mystery Woman – though there's never been any mystery about me. When I was a girl I loved Nancy Drew and wanted to become a detective – not Police, always a Private Eye, so it was Goldy and Gordon who became Policemen, and then Isa and now Gertie too. But this is me avoiding the issue! I asked Tam if it had been easy, adjusting to the electronic cigarette but he simply shook his head: “it's tobacco flavour and gives me all the nicotine I need, I tried the ones that are like a ciggie, but it just didn't feel right to me – this is a bit like smoking a pipe, though I was never a pipe man, unlike my old dad, he always had his pipe in his hand, or tween his teeth when he was digging, even if it went out and he didn't have time to light it, he kept it there, in his hand or tween his teeth, and I've never had the notion to go back to the fags since I started, so it's okay by me, and Nurse Becky says I'm doing well,” and he gave a grin. I always suspected he had a partiality for Becky Sharp, who is nothing like her name – she's plump and soft and warm and all the male petients are in love with her, but they haven't got a chance, and I know that for sure, but I'm saying no more! "And best of all," added Tam, "my Betsy sez am better smellin since ah stopped!" I told Tam I'd go and asky her for advice, I was needing a check-up anyway and it would get my Love off my back. So I'm going today. WTS!