SHOULD ONE OPEN IT?

The problem with being somewhat neurotic the way I am, and also being a packrat / collector / hoarder is the numbers. How many tins of a limited release C&D pipe tobacco do I need, for instance. I thought I had eight (8), but it turns out there are already nine (9). Which means either that I own one more than a perfect number, or one less. If I buy two more I can open one, or perhaps I should wait until I've purchased four more, so that I can bring it to an even dozen after doing so. Or go for sixteen. Sixteen is a nice number. 17. Which is close enough to twenty that I'll wait. Plus one more to have an extra to smoke sometime soon ...

Yeah. Um.

21.

I have three (3) hundred grammes tins of three (3) pipe tobaccos which are not made any more. So obviously those are untouchable. One hundred grammes is such a perfect quantity. Especially in the nice taller tins of the same diameter as the fifty grammes tins. The typical hundred grammes tin that Scandinavian usually uses is not so handsome. Dunhill tobaccos used to come in the nicer shape, and so did the famous Three Castles shag Virginia for rolling. Lord, those were lovely; a beautiful brightly verdant enamel lid which was in retrospect so utterly evocative!

I discovered the ninth tin this morning. Now I think I shall buy one tin of a particular German flake that came out in the last year so I can alternate them. This might not be a good idea.

It will require some thought. And a pipeful to calm my mind.
Maybe now is the time to open that tin near my chair?
The most recently purchased Rattray's.
One hundred grammes tin.
Old Gowrie.

Bought November 7, 2021.
Better wait a bit.
Obviously.


The experienced pipe smoker knows that the Rattrays hundred grammes tins are a different shape than MacBarens, or Dunhills. They don't look as evocative of comfy English living as the latter, more suggestive of roughing it in the hills of Burma or Nagaland. Maybe with appropriate items of clothing.

A hat. Perhaps I need a hat. Problem with such things is that they make me look pointy-headed. And despite our recent weather, and California being mostly an overheated desert wasteland rather like North Africa instead of a mellow Mediterranean climate like in Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, or Veneto, even Umbria, a sola topi nowadays looks ridiculous.

Which is sad.



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