Operating Without a License

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” I love this quote by Lewis Carroll  because it addresses a fear so many of us have of making bad choices. I liken our spiritual path to a game of, “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” We stumble blindly along, listening for clues that will steer us towards the destination that feels right.

I often find myself going down roads that I know are wrong, and yet I keep going. I like to assume that the Universe is trying to tell me something profound, and that I’m supposed to learn something from those diversions. That there is a reason for my being at a particular place in a specific time. I often wonder, why does one road close for some and open for others?

I don’t smoke and I don’t eat ribs, and yet I found myself on Labor Day weekend, at the annual rib cook off, “partying” in the Marlboro tent! Now, when I say “partying” I simply mean I am in the presence of what appears to be an assemblage of festivity, i.e. loud music, neon lights, a ready bartender. Unfortunately for those Marlboro people, there were only a handful of guests, and at least two of them, my niece Kelsey and I, didn’t even smoke.

Despite my non-rib-eating status, I end up at the rib cook-off every year. My brother-in-law, Greg is part of the Kinder barbecue team, so my family  comes up every year from San Jose to attend. On this particular day, the group of us spotted a large enclosed tent with a Marlboro banner across the front. Normally this wouldn’t hold any appeal, except one person in our group, we’ll call him Tom, happened to be a smoker. That cigarette tent beckoned him like the Wizard’s castle at the end of the yellow brick road. But like Dorothy and the scarecrow, Tom wasn’t going to get in, either.

“Sorry, dude,” the tent guardsman told him.

“What? But I smoke!” Tom held up his  pack of cigarettes.

The guardsman shook his head. “You need to have a driver’s license to get in.”

Tom did have a license to drive, he just didn’t think he’d need it once he’d parked his car.  With one cigarette left in his pack, he had to figure out a way to get inside that tent.

“She has a license!”he said, offering me up like a biblical sacrifice.

Tom was right. Even though I too had parked my car, I kept the license to operate said vehicle in my purse; the one conveniently hanging from my shoulder. I began an earnest search for the requested document.

“Do you smoke?” the guardsman asked me but Tom answered.

“Does she ever! It’s hard to get her to stop!  Why she’s the best smoker in the world. Look at her complexion. In fact–”

“OK, OK, ” I said, shooting Tom a look. Qualifying my smoking habits was not going to help his cause if I couldn’t find my  license amongst the useless scraps of paper that comprised the contents of my purse. “Hm, um, yes, I smoke and I have a driver’s license–it’s in here somewhere–you know how it is,” I said to the guardsman, “when you have disgusting habits, you tend to hoard things.” I didn’t know if this was true of smokers, I  just wanted to get back at Tom for the dig about my complexion. “Ah, here it is!” I said, holding up my license to drive.

I don’t know how old you have to be to smoke in Nevada, but apparently I am old enough, because I was allowed in. So was my niece Kelsey, also a non-smoker, who offered to keep me company. The two of us stood inside that Marlboro tent clutching our purses like two spinsters at a singles dance.

A man wearing a Marlboro hat approached us. “Hello, ladies,” he said.

Please don’t make us smoke, please don’t make us smoke, I willed.

“Hello,” we both said back. Oh, God! He knows we don’t smoke!

He showed us the new product he was promoting called Marlboro Snus. “It’s for those times when you needed a nicotine fix, but not able to smoke.”

Kelsey and I both nodded like we were grateful for such a product, especially one that is handed to us free.  She chose spearmint, while I said I preferred peppermint. The man gave us our samples along with coupons to purchase more. I filed both in my purse then followed Kelsey to the next counter where cigarettes were going for only a dollar a pack.

“Get out the coupon they gave us when we came in,” Kelsey said.

Coupon? I held up the one I’d just been given, but of course that was the wrong one. I set my purse down on the counter and began searching. I didn’t remember anyone giving me a coupon when I walked in. I was too flustered over the lying-to-get-cigarettes part. What did I do with it?

“What kind do you smoke?” the lady at the counter asked.

“Marlboro,” I answered.

“What kind?” she asked again, because apparently my answer wasn’t good enough.

“The kind that you…smo…oh…oh…ke…?”

Thank God, I had Kelsey with me. She knew exactly what kind.

“Reds,” she said. “We both smoke Marlboro Reds.”

Whew! The lady placed two packs on the counter  of the same kind of  cigarettes I’d seen Tom with. We plucked down our coupons and a couple of dollars and voila!

Unfortunately, my coupon was only going to give me cents off two packages of taco seasoning. Luckily Kelsey noticed the right coupon sticking out of my purse side pocket and pulled it out. Once we had procured the proper paper work, we were handed our smokes and no one asked any more stupid questions.

I don’t know why this road was wide open for me and closed for Tom, but I heard the life lesson loud and clear: CLEAN OUT YOUR PURSE!