BORING OLD FART

Both of them have been with me longer than my ex-girlfriend. Who is also still with me, because we share an apartment. She does not know that these two pre-date her, but it would make scant difference. She appreciates my loyalties, even when it comes to 'objects'.


One pipe dates from my teenage years, before my mother passed away, one pipe was acquired during my impoverished mid-twenties (expensive, lah!), several years before I met her.

I smoked both the other night outside 'The Bell', when it was crowded.

Smoking a pipe has become a solitary experience.


On Friday I enjoyed tobacco after porkchops for lunch, on the perimeter of Portsmouth Square where the old farts play cards. Non-smoking clean-living Cantonese retirees in the park, depraved tobacco afficionados outside.


Almost none of the old men on the perimeter know that I speak Cantonese. Most of the people who are aware of that are women: the ladies at bakeries, porkchop restaurants, and chachanteng.

And places where one can get something over rice.
Not strictly "need to know".
But close.


Apparently, all the women who work at a bubble tea place where I get coffee with sweetened condensed milk know that too.
Despite the that three of them I never met before.

Word travelled. Keui sik kong kwontungwa.
佢識講廣東話。



Informational: alone, smokes a pipe, speaks various languages.
Probably peculiar, but largely harmless.
Smells of tobacco.




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