I go for for years without hearing the word “snuff” and then I hear it twice in the same week. And not only hear it, but hear it in conversations directed toward me. The first time was when the doctor at the medical clinic I’d gone to with a sinus infection this past weekend asked me if I “dipped.” (Read more about this at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20081219/ARTICLES/812190302/1004). The second time was Friday on my (usually) daily visit to my 93-year-old mother-in-law at a local nursing home. When I go in the afternoon, she’s normally asleep, but that’s OK because her roommate — we’ll call her Mrs. H. — likes to talk. And by “talk” I mean she asks where Larry and them are and urges me to tell them to get a move on because they gotta go to town later and dinner’s almost ready. (It’s always a party at the nursing home.) But on Friday, after I asked Mrs. H. how she was and she allowed that she was pretty good, she looked me directly in the eye, jabbed a finger in my direction and said, “Don’t never do snuff. You can’t get shut of it. It’s that bad. I wish I never had.” Yes, ma’am. Point taken. I can absolutely promise never to do snuff. So that makes twice in one week that people have asked me/urged me if I did/not to do snuff. Very strange. My husband says this is chaos theory, which I interpret to mean you don’t do anything for five Saturday nights in a row and then three invitations arrive for the same Saturday night but you end up getting a sinus infection and stay home anyway. Or two people in one week mention snuff to you. Go figure.