GREAT REPTILE INVESTIGATIONS

When you go through stacks of stuff, and you are a packrat, you end up with dust on your spectacles, happy discoveries of things you didn't even know you had, and a far greater self knowledge than you wished for. I found pipe tobacco in sealed tins that I had totally forgotten about, half a dozen kippot (one of which is pride month suitable), and correspondence which I meant to answer years ago but didn't. I also revisited the stuffed armadillo that stood on my credenza at the toy company. I knew I still had him, and precisely where he was (near the boom box and precisely in the way of my feet when exploring among the tins of Dunhill tobaccos from twenty years ago on my computer desk).

There is now dust everywhere. This will need a damp cloth and ventilation.

And fairly brisk effort re-stacking things and making the place look "undisturbed" by the time my apartment mate returns. She's left two bras hanging to dry in the bathroom, by the way. She had upon leaving for the day expressed the hope that I would not be irked by the immodesty of her doing so.

Good lord, woman, I knew years ago that you had breasts.
It's not a sudden horrible surprise.
There are two.

I also know that you have no tattoos between them.
Or anywhere else.

Don't ask.

A PAUSE FOR CONTEMPLATION AFTER LOOKING FOR SOME MISSING TINS

When she returns this evening I'll just be sitting on my rock soaking up the sunlight, la la la, as if nothing happened today. Think of me as the mysterious monitor lizard of pipe tobacco hoarding, with unknown superpowers. No, I did not find anymore My Mixture 965 from 2004.
A friend wanted some, but it may all be gone by now. Plenty of Durbar and London Mixture, some more Rattrays, McClellands, and some G. L. Pease flakes in nicely bulgy tins.


It has always struck me as a very great pity that there are so few women pipe smokers. The distaff side often likes tea as much as a man, and avidly reads Faulkner, Simenon, and Sir Bertrand Russel too. Curries and delicious pastries by the fire, also. In many ways they have exactly the same tastes as men. And aesthetically they can certainly appreciate the craftsmanship and fine grain of a prized old briar.

They just never really developed a taste for blowing fragrant fumes out of their nostrils while swotting Latin and Algebra. Or even once they developed an obsession with applied geology. Such as might stand them in good stead drilling through the piles of books and documents in their digs while looking for missing tins.

Maybe they're just too organized, and don't have piles?
Further investigation is required.



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