I had to stop at the grocery store on my way home from work yesterday to pick up a few essentials. As I left the store and headed to my car I noticed a lady in front of me stopping right outside the store to light a cigarette. She was probably in her late 30s to early 40s and was a strong 7 on the 10 scale. She looked pretty much like your typical housewife or soccer mom. She was right in front of me as I walked to my car and she was chaining her cigarette like there was no tomorrow. Because she was parked almost directly across from me I was able to get into my car and have a great view of the proceedings. It became very obvious right away that she was trying to finish her cigarette before getting into her car and that she was doing everything possible to keep any smoke from getting into the car. She held her cigarette as far away as possible from the open door with one hand, while loading groceries into the back seat of her car with the other hand. When she finished loading, she walked back towards the store to return her cart, once again chain-smoking all the way. When she arrived back at her car she took one monster drag and exhaled a huge amount of smoke into the air.

Up until now this wasn’t that unusual of a sighting for me. I see a lot of women who don’t want to smoke in their cars for whatever reason, so here’s where it got interesting. She stood outside of her car for about another twenty seconds as if she was waiting for the smoke to completely clear the air. Then she opened her rear door and took off the sweatshirt she was wearing. She shook it out, rolled it up and threw it into the back seat. Then she took her hair out of the pony-tail she had it in, shook her hair out and thoroughly ran her fingers through it. She then reached into the car and pulled out a different sweatshirt which she then put on. After this, she reached into the car again and got some kind of spray bottle which she sprayed all over her hair and sweatshirt. When she was done she got into the driver’s seat, sat down and closed the door. She then rummaged around in the car and came up with what was obviously a “wet wipe” of some kind which she then thoroughly wiped her hands, face, neck and even her hair with. When finished, she sprayed her mouth with some kind of breath spray (at least five or six spurts), and then, as if that wasn’t enough, put a piece of gum in her mouth. Finally, she brought out a little spray bottle of purfume and spritzed her neck, hair, and hands. She was so engrossed in her little ritual that she never even noticed me watching her. When she was finished with all this, she started her car, opened all the windows and drove away. When she pulled out, I noticed that she had out-of- state plates. Since I was certain that I wasn’t going to see anymore smoking from her, I started my own car and headed home.