CIVILIZATION AS WE KNEW IT

Imagine that it's a lovely summer morning in a college city, let's say on the West Coast, and you've gotten up late. You shower, and get dressed, and stroll to the centre of town, where you order a cappuccino and a pain au chocolat. Which you enjoy on the terrace of the καφενεíο. And you desire to have a refined smoke with a second cup, perhaps a few blocks away. On the way from καφενεíο number one to καφενεíο number two you purchase a lovely pack of cigarettes made in Egypt with Turkish tobacco by a Greek company. And, with your second cup, you light up. Puff contemplatively. And decide to write another novel. It being the trickling proceeds from the first one that permit you the occasional luxury, like the beverage and exquisite smokes you are presently enjoying.

Six weeks later, you 're already into chapter four, the heroine has just died of consumption, and it being a lovely summer morning you wish to again have a delicious breakfast pastry and caffeinated beverage followed by a smoke, but this time you decide to replenish your supply before you sit down, as you have realized that you ran out sometime in the past six weeks. Small leaf Oriental tobacco does not have enough nicotine to encourage a raving addiction, you only had one cigarette every two or three days. But they're gone, you finished the pack. Fortunately Georgiopolo Fine Cigarettes, Cigars, and Pipes, catering to the educated bohemian and university crowd for over a century, is on the route there.

Ah, this heavenly! Fine smokes. Good coffee. sunlight. Deceased heroine. Such delightful sadness among the other characters. Poetic lamentation!

You spend five hours on that terrace, and smoke TWO cigarettes. A very productive day.
Your notepad is now filled with elegantly cursive text. More plot twists.
You reward yourself with another cigarette.

Yeah, um. Many people no longer use cursive script because they're functionally illiterate, both καφενεíο #A and #B are now totally vegan and make shitty drinks with soy or oat milk instead of dairy, and you can't smoke on their terraces anymore because what about the children?!? Besides, Georgiopolo Fine Cigarettes, Cigars, and Pipes now sells only vapes, marijuana usage requisites, and kratom, and nice cigarettes made in Egypt with Turkish tobacco by Greek companies are. No. Longer. Imported!

The similar ones once made in Germany and Austria aren't either. Nor the ones produced by British firms. They aren't even made anymore. The world has gone to hell.


It has been ages since I saw any Turkish style cigarettes.


It's been almost thirty years since you could smoke inside a coffee shop. You know, if a man has to put up with pretentious gits and "artists" while sipping a warm beverage, he ought to at least be able to have a ciggy made in Egypt with Turkish tobacco by Greeks while doing so.



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