CHASTISE THE BUGGER!

It looked at me from underneath my apartment mate's chair when I entered the teevee room with my coffee, as if to ask whether there would be comfort, safety, and a profound 'coolness' to my behaviour. Cats define coolness as no startling movements or disconcerting sounds, an atmosphere characterised by couth, and the comforting smell of Virginia pipe tobaccos being smoked contemplatively. Or, if the smoker is an author, which I'm not, Balkan blends such as William Faulkner enjoyed. Those of a Scientific bent might smoke over-the-counter blends from Sutliff et autres, but sparky creative minds do often prefer the addition of some Turkish or Syrian leaf. Fantasts, such as Tolkien and Sir Bertrand Russell, however, are distinctly in the flue-cured (Virginia) camp.


"Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs."
------ Albert Einstein


Angry Berkeleyite Earthmothers and other frightful harridans (either gender) vastly prefer that you don't smoke at all, and rot in hell instead. My apartment mate, who is not like that, does actually prefer that I light up outside, which is why the feline currently under her chair will be disappointed. First smoke of the day is always while walking around a few blocks outside among the dog people and healthnuts.

Berkeley and other college towns used to have a faint whiff of pipe tobacco at all times, but nowadays reek mostly of marijuana and unwashed Guatamalan ethnic garb as worn meaningfully by santimonious vegetarian twats. This is not an improvement.

San Francisco smells mostly of dog poo and healthnuts. This is also not an improvement.
In the Italian part of North Beach there is a lovely aroma of roasting coffee beans, which gives way gradually to an odour of vegan cooking and rutting poet, or, as you head over to Chinatown, some rather nice meaty fragrances and smuggled in cigarettes puffed in mahjong parlours. But mostly, it's dog poo and healthnuts. Ah, the bracing smell of exercise clubs and yoga studios early in the morning! Sweaty and fermentive! Mmmm!

We don't have a cat. There is one downstairs, who my apartment mate will take care of when our landlady is on vacation, but whom I have seldom seen. What we have is a corner-of-the-eye ghost cat. It sometimes shows up in the the halflight of early morning. What proves that it is not flesh-and-blood is that nothing has ever been pushed off the tables or kitchen counter, there is no scratched furniture, and not even a whiff of cat pee smell.


About an hour after my apartment has gone to work, I will close her bedroom door, fill a pipe, and light up. The cat, if it is still lurking, will settle down to snooze, and there will be no angry puritan busibodies telling me that my tobacco is harming generations of children as yet unborn. Or accusing me of having a dark and harmful aura.


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