Third Hand Smoke

My son enlightened me on third hand smoke the other day.  "Mom, do you know what third hand smoke is?"

"I'm not sure what you are talking about."

"First hand smoke is when you smoke yourself.  Second hand is when you are breathing someone else's smoke.  Third hand smoke is the smoke that emanates off of couches and other fabrics for days or months after someone has smoked."

I'm never sure where he comes up with this information.  Lately, he's had all sorts of little nuggets from the John Tesh radio show which apparently he falls asleep to.  Suddenly, he'll tell me about how drinking water helps you lose weight or that apples really keep the dentist away not the doctor.  Dear Son has become just a wealth of knowledge. 

Of course sadly, we unwillingly did an experiment on third hand smoke the other day after visiting my father.  My dad had thoughtfully pulled all the yellow jelly beans out of his jelly beans since he knows they are DS's favorite (my father figures that since he doesn't eat vegetables, he can get his beans in other ways and dear dad stocks up on jelly beans at all times of the year.).  So my son brought the jelly beans home in the container.  When he opened the container in our smoke free house, we all almost gagged.  The smell was absolutely overwhelming.  My husband joked that now if we were missing Poppie we could just breathe in the canister.  Of course, that is after he marched us all off to the shower to get the smoke out of our hair and clothes.  So be warned, there is a new public health menace: third hand smoke.