We set up a big net in the back yard and the kids and I have been playing badminton.

I’d guess it took about five minutes for my deodorant to quit and for the sweat to run down into my eyes and blind me.

That was probably what attracted all the mosquitoes. We couldn’t hear them or see them but we know they were there because they left their bumpy itchy little calling cards all over us. If I were smart, I’d have lit the citronella candles. If I were smart.

I took the kids to Snow’s for lunch, figuring that a local hamburger joint would be fun for them. Unfortunately, Cancer Man had that same thought.

Every time we go to Snow’s, this same old man is sitting there smoking cigarette after cigarette and stinking up the whole place. He stays for hours, and he smokes constantly, and he gets refills on his drink, and he smokes constantly, and he watches CMT real loud on the restaurant’s tv, and he smokes one after another after another. The restaurant loses a lot of business because of Cancer Man; you’d think the owners would do something about him. Stupid small town with no smoking restrictions. People actually drive up, see his truck in the parking lot, and go somewhere else.

I suppose I should be saying things like “Poor old man with no place to go and nobody to hang out with, he gets such enjoyment sitting there in Snow’s smoking and drinking pop and smoking and watching the people come to the door and smoking and seeing people see him sitting there smoking and walk away” but honestly, when I see him sitting there in his cloud of stink, I want to turn the hose on him and wash him out the door and down the highway for the good of all mankind.

But in real life? We go inside and I order a hamburger with pickles and a quarter inch of mustard, some great Snow’s fries, and a large diet coke with that awesome soft flat shaved ice. Hub orders a dressed coney and a fish sandwich with pickles and some onion rings. And we sit as far from Cancer Man and his Aura of Stink as is geographically possible, and we smile at him and try to pretend that he’s not spoiling the experience for everyone else in the universe. Well, the lucky ones who know about Snow’s, that is.

Their food is actually good enough to make sitting in the stink worthwhile. Imagine.

Please, stupid town, pass some anti-stench anti-smoking laws. PLEASE.

And when we get back home, we have to take off all our clothes and wash them, and take showers and wash our hair to get the stink out of ourselves. Thank you, Cancer Man.

The end.