Short Thoughts With Jodi K Episode 2
episode 2
Surviving Stabby
In honor of National Boyfriend Day, my man is gonna do my weekly blog today!
Btw…107 days smoke free!
SURVIVING “STABBY”
I would not call Jodi a quitter. Yes, she quit smoking. I know the addiction and difficulties are real. She actually put a lot of effort into quitting. Go figure! I’m also very proud of her for deciding to quit and following through with her goals. She is always working on it, so she is not quitting as much as she is staying her own course. She does have a lot to be proud of.
However, there have been some, how should I put this, fall-out from her quitting. Let us just say, she did not quite cover all of the things that she was doing to “keep busy”. Spending as much time as I do with Jodi I have witnessed firsthand some of the things she also did.
True to her creative form, Jodi coined the phrase, “I’m being stabby!” Best translation would be, “I’m going to stab someone!” She had some days where she was a little confrontational and maybe even a little angry. One day in particular she tried and tried to start an argument with me. If she got angry enough with me then she would “deserve” a cigarette and could blame me! I would ask her a question and I would get a very “stabby” “WHAT??!!” I would just smile and say “Never mind”. On the inside it was more like, “Holy s$%*!” There were also many instances of her slapping her chest yelling, “Come at me bro!”
Another hobby Jodi took up when she decided to quit smoking was to tell people how she was quitting smoking. Now she had a lot to be proud of and deserved to celebrate her accomplishments. If you came across Jodi while she was out you got to hear the story about how she was quitting slow turkey and the coughing, and her Mom’s story, all of it was inspirational. For me it was a little different as I was with her all weekend. I got to hear that story over, and over, and over. Don’t get me wrong, I was and am very proud of her. It was a very good story and she had it down repeating it word for word, over and over. Also, in her defense, she does come across a lot more people than most. I would listen to the story another hundred times to support her.
Another thing that took up some of her time was finding out who was smoking. Her sense of smell must have increased tenfold after she quit. The best one was one day we were driving down the road. I was doing 60+ miles per hour and out of nowhere, “I smell smoke! Someone is smoking!” I immediately looked around the truck, I don’t smoke, nobody else is in the truck with us and I was like, “WHAT???” I imagine the car in front of us had a smoker and she somehow smelled it through the vents of my truck. Then she’s pulling out her purse, smelling her jacket, going through her purse and smelling everything. I have no idea but it was entertaining and a bit scary to watch.
The sense of smell was not just when we were in the truck. We would be at one of the concerts, at a store, anywhere outside and her nose would go up in the air like a dog smelling steak. We would be walking; she’d stop in her tracks and announce “Someone’s smoking!” Her eyes would scan all around her looking for the smokers. Once she discovered them, she would have to go over to them saying, “I just want to smell it, I quit smoking ya know!”(Insert quit smoking story here).
Did you know McDonald’s changed their barbecue dipping sauce recipe? Yeah, I didn’t know that either, probably because they didn’t. What did change though was Jodi’s sense of taste. The first few weeks I got to hear “this doesn’t taste right.” She was convinced they changed that recipe. “Did you do something different to this?” was a common question when I cooked a meal for her I had cooked several times. “No dear, same recipe.” This is when Stabby would come out and try to convince me I had changed something.
All of it was worth it. She loves those grand-babies and so do I. They are just adorable and so much fun to babysit and play with. I’m proud of her decisions to get healthier to be around longer for them and you can just tell how much they mean to her. I also enjoy the extra time I get with her since she’s not sitting in my garage for half an hour at a time and I don’t have to worry about it being too cold for her during the winter. We don’t have to coordinate smoke breaks and she doesn’t have to avoid kissing me right after, so there’s a lot to be thankful for. I am proud of her. I just think I should get a t-shirt or something that says “I survived Jodi Quitting!”
