One of the things I disquisitioned on this past weekend was the desirability, pressing need even, to rope children into the habit. Billboards near school playgrounds, after class activities sponsored by tobacco companies, keen collectibles. Because when I am in my dotage, I shall require a strapping nurse to wheel me out to the designated smoking area seven to ten blocks away from all human habitation and the retirement home. And obviously, only a fellow-smoker (preferably female) would do so. Which means someone who starts smoking in this era.
Perhaps in a few years.
I figure two to three decades ere I shall need her services. So maybe there is some leeway. Someone who is not even born yet, who won't start enjoying tobacco until fifteen to twenty five years from now.
Because I intend to be a dirty old man by then.
I shall wish to enjoy the company.
Here nursey nursey!
... The mystique, the allure, the description on Cigar Afficionado's webpage ...
What also needs to happen is a lessening of the sin tax burden, so that they can afford decent smokes. Maybe Partagas, Padron, or Arturo Fuente at the very least. Three or four Fuente Chateaux or Hemingways and maybe a Davidoff Colorado Claro Short Perfecto (which is really a piss-elegant cigar, and ultra-feminine to boot) per day.
Because there is no reason that high quality tobacco products should be affordable only to the wealthy. Anyone who is pulling in substantially more than one hundred K a year will have no reason to wheel us crusty old farts out to the place in the tidal swamp where smoking is allowed!
One has to think of these things.
Which is why I am hoping a recent reader is a sparkling Filipina between ten and twenty years of age.
At 11:32 AM, Melissa said…
"A cigarette? What do you think I am, a boor? I actually _care_ about quality tobacco, thank you very much, which is what led me to your blog. I smoke CIGARS at bedtime. Why do you jump to assume _cigarettes_?!"
I'm not quite sure that I approve of cigars at bedtime. That isn't what a teenager needs to do. The body is still growing and developing at that age, and cigars at bedtime lead to strange dreams and peculiar behaviour in school the next day. I know this, because from fifteen till eighteen I would not infrequently have a cigar and a genever at the Auberge Central, or at Parsifal (no genever, but cheap Havanas) when my funds were tight.
I think my parents would have objected to cigars in the bedrooms.
In any case, I assumed cigarettes in the discussion under that post because most people smoke cigarettes. Cigar smokers are a minority, and many find it difficult to smoke at home because their family members or co-tenants will force them out and toward the end of the yard, to commune with the skunks, muskrats, goats, feral garbage kids, and other "fragrant" things.
I pictured a haggard alcoholic wreck, with nicotine-stained fingers and blackened teeth. Apparently that was entirely wrong.
Now I'm fondly imagining a perky brown-eyed bronze damsel or a pink-faced blonde of curvy build. Perhaps with a little red sports car.
Which is also wrong, so very very wrong!
But differently.
You're probably more like the men in the lounge, though. Several of whom are bald and have paunches, but I don't mean physically. Same type of person, similar character, and also their kind of taste.
Except for Slug-dude. He smokes mail-ordered El Ropo, and brings bags of luncheon foods plus greasy kibble on his days of vegetabling in front of the television watching golf.
He will need to be wheeled out to the tidal flat soon.
But it may take two strong men to do so.
And a crowbar.
Anyhow, Melissa darling, do please tell me more about your own dissipated zesty sinful self.
Are you less than five feet six inches tall?
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5 comments:
Oh my. Your quick about-face has been rather, let us say, creepy. Yesterday you were mocking and berating me for my practice of smoking in bed, and today you want me to be, like, your best friend and personal attendant. While in theory, I wouldn't be opposed to becoming friends (and perhaps even, as you suggest, something more than just friends, however that might look), right now I'm still pissed at you. There is nothing more sublime than spending an evening having a few alcoholic drinks, whether or not with ice, and then turning on some soothing music, getting into bed or the couch, lighting up a large cigar, and then drifting off to sleep, with lit cigar in mouth. So first I'd like a serious apology, before you start asking me for more personal details.
Melissa daahhling, the internet allows, positively encourages, sudden character shifts and different masks. As it also did for you. Your first comment called me something reprehensible. Quote: "You are a f*cking spoilsport. Like, really? I would have expected better from you. " End quote.
I don't know anything about you, except that you might be abrasive. And you might not even be real. If you are real, we probably wouldn't get along in the real world.
So apology, no. I find it impossible to believe that a person who started off by getting pissy (because of how he/she interpreted a previous comment underneath this post) and calling me a "f*cking spoilsport" can get offended at being twitted.
By the way, you may end up setting your bed or couch on fire accidentally. After a few alcoholic drinks.
Your cat will look at you reproachfully after she burned to death and ask why you were so 'careless'.
Melissa, are you "strapping"?
Some of us really want to know.
More to the pressing matter. El Ropo cigars.
I remember reading Spider Robinson books where his character Mike Callahan smoked El Ropos. I have never found them in the real world. I am slightly intrigued.
Oh, hello Melissa.
Hi Nate; sorry I can't help you out on El Ropos. I'm using that name as a catch-all for whatever cheap stogie it is that Slug-dude smokes. He's notorious for never buying cigars locally.
Of course, given California's shamelessly extortionate taxes factored into the retail prices of tobacco products, that really isn't so unwise.
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