EVEN MORE REASONS TO MAKE CONTACT WITH EARTH

I've been looking at the empty tobacco tins stacked in a corner of the teevee room. Without my even noticing, they've added up a bit since the last grand clearout of smoker's detritus. Yes, I am a slob.
Or perhaps I enjoy having the evidence that I've been up to something all around.
My apartment mate is a very patient woman.

Well, oblivious too, or she NEVER would have given up on my handsome ever-so-likeable self more than two years ago. Be that as it may, it explains why I like having her here, and why despite having gotten over me and my very considerable charms (stop snickering, dammit), she still likes living with me.
I am a known quantity.
So is she.

She doesn't smoke.


EMTPY TINS

Dunhill 965, enameled tin. A pleasant middle-of-the-road English mixture much suited to middle-aged men who play golf or know Aramaic.
I am neither.
Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture (also enameled tin). Good lord what was I thinking. This product is FAR too eccentric for me.
Dunhill Royal Yacht (enameled). Vile. Possibly degenerate. Suitable for teenage boys.
Dunhill Early Morning Pipe (enameled). A extremely pleasant product. Goes well with strong black tea, spot of milk and sugar. Very civilized.
Wessex Red Virginia Flake. Nice. reminds me of childhood. More innocent times, in any case.
Wessex Brown Virginia Flake. Early adolescence, when I was still pearled with dew.
Gawith Hogarth Ennerdale. What nasty men smoke.
Orlik Golden Sliced. There's that childlike innocence again. Chasing butterflies, sunlight, tall grasses.
MacBaren Virginia Flake. Old ladies, and anise pastilles.
Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake. Possibly a slightly degenerate teenage period, but also something that elderly gentlemen can smoke without fear of being molested.
Samuel Gawith St. James Flake. I am become a small dark-haired miss, and there is no one in the house right now. I shall swan about naked.
Samuel Gawith Golden Glow. A lighter Virginia tobacco, springlike. Straw-blonde hair and a lovely summer dress. La la la.
Samuel Gawith Squadron Leader. I say, Pip, Jerry's over the channel.
Samuel Gawith Commonwealth Full Strength Mixture. Let us now sing the songs that students sing in Latin, while taunting the other colleges.
Samuel Gawith 1792 Flake. Something for my more depraved moments. The reason why you haven't read about them in the newspaper is because I am very discreet.
Rattrays Hal O' The Wynd. A spring breeze, an innocent damsel, and amazing self-control. Stay a gentleman at all times, stay a gentleman at all times, stay a gentleman....
Rattrays Old Gowrie. Badger roaming the fields and forest glades.
Rattrays Marlin Flake. Dammit, I need to kill a fish. No, I am not in Hemingway mode.
Rattrays Brown Clunee. Stylish in my skirt and cardigan, and very demure.
Erinmore Mixture. Anything more suggestive of birching would be hard to imagine.
Greg Pease Abingdon. I want a ham sandwich and a glass of sherry.
Esoterica Tabaciana Dunbar. A downtown alley near the TransAmerica Pyramid, late summer. And crows.
Germain's Medium Flake. Young men at twilight.
Germain's Brown Flake. Horny young men, beer at midnight.
Germain's Plum Cake Mixture. Depravities involving unguents. Secretly enjoyable.
Germain's Eighteen Twenty Smoking Mixture. A calm rational man, whom you would enjoy meeting over tea and cookies.

And lastly, Davidoff Flake Medallions. Amazingly happy-making.


I have a rich inner-life.
Possibly an alternative reality.


When the zombie-apocalypse comes, women will flock around me, because as a pipe-smoker I represent stability and common sense.
The living dead will stay far away.

And we will have cups of tea, with milk and sugar.

TOBACCO INDEX


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