Home » Weekend Writing Prompt » Weekend Writing Prompt #105 – Denial

Weekend Writing Prompt #105 – Denial

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Weekend Writing Prompt #105

A word prompt to get your creativity flowing this weekend.  How you use the prompt is up to you.  Write a piece of flash fiction, a poem, a chapter for your novel…anything you like.  Or take the challenge below – there are no prizes – it’s not a competition but rather a fun writing exercise.  If you want to share what you come up with, please leave a link to it in the comments.

Wonderful that this is day one of year three of this wonderful prompt.  Thank you, Sammi!

 

“Have you been smoking, Suzie?”

“No, Mémère, why do you say that?”

“Are you absolutely sure you didn’t just smoke a cigarette in the bathroom?”

I had opened the window.  How could she tell?  Indignant denial was proof of my lie.  “No…”

Today, an ex-smoker, I can smell the slightest whiff of cigarette smoke on a person.  How I ever tried to pull the wool over my grandmother’s eyes was naiveté or a brazen act of bravado.

Pixabay

89 thoughts on “Weekend Writing Prompt #105 – Denial”

  1. I like your tale. And I know what you mean about smelling the slightest whiff. Oh, and there was me in job interviews saying, No, I don’t smoke. Huh. Not so much naive as unknowing.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I remember the boys flatly denying that they had tried smoking. So I assumed that all the smokers in the area trapsed through our house and their bedroom and left their cigarette ends on the porch roof below their bedroom? Grown up now two are non smokers and one an occasional smoker!💜💜

    Liked by 1 person

  6. I never smoked, and I can smell it, too. My husband smokes, and I hate it. He doesn’t smoke in the house, or my car. But people used to smoke everywhere, so if I just went out to dinner, my clothes would smell like smoke.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. A good story, well done in 77 words. And true — what kids don’t think they can convince their elders of!

    My sister and her husband both smoked and people knew it when we’d been to their house, especially for a holiday gathering. I talked to her a few days ago and she told me the sad news: she got chemo & radiation treatments for lung cancer this winter. She’s not surprised — it’s a common enough result. I hope she’s cured and that they’ve both quit now.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you, Christine. Kids are so dumb 😉.

      So sorry about your sister. I have lost my father and three friends to lung cancer. The friends all 50 and under…

      Like

  9. Gotta love it Dale. Isn’t it funny how we tried so hard to hide the fact that we smoked from non-smokers? As you stated, you can smell it a Mile away. I was a chain smoker, 3 pack a day non filtered Camels for about 16 years. Gave it up cold turkey by throwing a pack out the window of my car on May 2nd, 1976. Never looked back. Thanks for the reminder. Lol.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Good for you, Jan!
      Yeah, we are fools foe thinking we don’t stink!
      I gave it up the day I found out I was pregnant foe my 2nd. Can’t remember the exact date! Some time in July or August 1997…

      Liked by 1 person

  10. I never smoked, but I can smell the slightest hint of a whiff on someone … AND … I recognize the same ‘kind’ of denials in many a youngling … and not about smoking only–though there were those 4-5th graders in some of the schools I’d worked in who came to school stoned as could be after smoking pot first thing in the morning (yea, I know, and I could ALWAYS pick up on it … A similar ‘energy of vehement denials in the face of absolute proof’ exists for other stuff kids seem befuddled that we adults can ‘see’ without them knowing what we ‘see’ … 😉

    Liked by 1 person

  12. I try to remember when one lies to me that they are really lying to themselves. But yes, can smell it the millisecond it’s lit. The lying is way more destructive, but they don’t see that.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Q,

    I remember smoking at seven years of age and being the only one in my motley crue who didn’t choke or get sick. I should have known that was a bad sign, LOL.

    Do I miss smoking? Every day and yes in spite of my best judgment. But at least I don’t abide by it any longer, but for the occasional ‘swig’ now and again. To which I justify it by the fact I don’t smoke cigars any longer. Or hookah. And really . . while smoking can and in lots of cases WILL kill you . . that vaping shit is even worse!

    You did a TON in so few words here! Of course . . .77 words is a novel compared with some of the challenges you’ve slam dunked.

    This post was . . . wait for it . . . schmokin!!

    B

    Like

    • B,

      That was definitely a bad sign 😉

      Funny. I really don’t miss it at all. Like ever. Then again, I did give myself a friggen good reason to never smoke again. Will forever feel guilty for my first son.
      No cigars, eh? Not even when a certain someone brings you one from Cuba by way of Montreal?
      It can and will kill. Vaping – scares me even more.

      I did, did I? Course I lied by using my cousin Suzie’s name…

      Schmokin’!

      Q

      Liked by 1 person

      • Yeah, I thought so. And to chase the real things with those candy smokes . . with the mini-badass powder puff? Double no bueno.

        Well, that counts as every now and again. 😉

        And yeah, those vapes are probably mincing people’s innards on a daily basis for all we know and don’t.

        Fibber! 😉

        You got the hang of it now, go on girl!

        Like

        • Yep. Popeye candy cigarettes! (now called candy sticks coz, well, yanno).

          It does. And may happen again. Unless of course, you say no adamantly.

          Those vapes – no way there is anything good about them.

          I was. ‘k I am.

          I think I just might.

          Liked by 1 person

          • There were so many vices in our candy back then! I remember the candy prescription meds. The candy smokes, the candy liquor bottles . . .

            Adamantly huh? It helps if I change the voice of the cigarette too. From Vera Farmiga to Larry King. That does the trick.

            Nope. These kids might as well be smoking aerosol cans.

            Are. Is. Both. LOL

            😉

            Like

          • I know. Ahhh… those innocent days 😉

            Why not? And if it works… well.

            Don’t they? Between the Tide Pods and whatever other stupid things they do…

            Yes. Both.

            😉

            Liked by 1 person

          • Very! And today, everything is taken so literally.

            With a little help and encouragement from your friends.

            Or any of the other inane challenges they do. Shit for brains, I swear.

            😘

            Liked by 1 person

          • TOO literally. Granted, there was definitely a lot of fucked up shit back there. But at least we understood each other for who we were. Today peeps dress things up and will not show the truth. That’s not better either.

            I get by with a little help from my friend . . . and sometimes even get high. 😉

            Leave Cinnamon alone! It never did anything to these peeps they didn’t make it do! I mean . . it’s perfect. Let it be.

            😘

            Liked by 1 person

  17. Ha!! Love this. I used to smoke out the bathroom window, too, and wonder how my mother could possibly smell it (especially since she was a smoker, too!). I can smell smokers in cars that pass me when I’m out walking now that I don’t smoke.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. I grew up in a house where both my parents smoked. After I married a non-smoker whenever I visited my parents I was appalled by the smell. They both died of heart problems in their mid-sixties – a gravely worse possible side-effect of smoking.

    Liked by 1 person

    • It’s amazing what we get used to. My parents both smoked and one of my sisters and I also started as young adults. I can imagine how much my youngest sister had to put up with. Now? Not a one of us does!
      My father died of lung cancer so yeah… nothing good about that habit!

      Liked by 1 person

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