WARMLY COMFORTING WORDS

On one of the discussion pages for pipe smokers, several people in the past few weeks have complained that it is too cold outside to enjoy their tobacco, and asked how other pipe smokers were coping with having to step into the yard to puff their pipes in the dead of winter. Because their wives won't let them do so inside.

I feel their pain. I likewise cannot smoke in most of my living quarters when my apartment mate is home -- sometimes late at night I light of a bowlful of flue-cured leaves, when she has gone to sleep and the door to her room is closed -- and though I can smoke in the kitchen near the open window, or in the bathroom with the window open, such circumstances do not provide an enchanting experience.

She's got a bad sense of smell, though.
And is relaxed about my bad habits.
Plus very kind and human.

In an hour or two I shall shut her door firmly after she leaves for work, open a few windows, and light up. Strong coffee, a thick warm sweater, the internet, and the fact that I live in California will combine to make life wonderful. I will even twiddle my toes! And grunt. She won't be back till around seven, so I shan't smoke after three o'clock inside.
I'll probably be in Chinatown having a snack.
And some milk tea.

Those gentlemen do not have that option. They voluntarily live in beastly cold places like Idaho. And they probably don't like pastries or milk tea.

My advice to them:


"Split up or move to California!"

"Preferably both."


It's their own damned fault for living in that frigid place with a woman who chases them out of the house.

Is she watching the shopping channel while they're freezing their balls off?

She's probably got the thermostat set on high.

While they're shivering.



When you live with another person, mutual tolerance is a must. You should take due care that her teddy bear does not end up smelling like tobacco, and she should accept the fact that if she chases you out you might never come back. One day she'll return from buying designer handbags like madman with all her girl friends at the mall, and you'll be gone.

You took the cats with you, as well as the good blankets.

Get divorced pronto AND move to California, you wuss.

Honestly, some men! Just not grown-up.




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