2009-06-10 - 10:55 p.m.

My current smoking ban comes with a few allowances. Buying smokes is strictly verboten. Purchasing a pack ensures twenty swiftly smoldered squares and quick trip back onto the wagon. I didn't fly through two rather expensive boxes of patches to fold that easily. However, a spare cig here and there isn�t out of bounds. Having one or two in a day isn�t awful. It�s still far less than the twenty some odd cancer sticks I was sliding down my throat like so many mini-burgers from White Castle, back in the day.

So after surviving a long day of work, and managing a hair cut that didn�t make me look twelve, I gave myself permission to bum a smoke should one make itself available.

My first targets were a trip-tic of flannel making their way up St. Marks. Big rims, hair that seemed to drool off the top of their heads, and well beaten chucks; these three were doing little to save themselves from the hipster brand.

�Pardon me...�

I got the lead one to look up.

�Can I bum...uh...buy a smoke of you?�

In the past few weeks, when I�ve dared to bother someone for a stick of tar, I�ve insisted on at least making the motions of payment. So far, only one has taken me up on the offer. These three, each of them with a smoke, probably turned their ears off as soon as I said the word �bum.�

�Ehhh...I...Sorry...� Was all he could manage, along with an awkward shrug.

I nodded solemnly, and raised my hand in an understanding salute. All the while, I prayed that spiders would nest in each of their Baby�s-First-Beards.

Luckily, only a few doors down, there was a bar. And where there is a bar, there are at least a few smokers loitering out front. In this case it was two older suits. A grey haired distinguished gentlemen who�d already doffed his jacket and rolled his sleeves, and his slightly more stout friend, who insisted on keeping his single breasted jacked closed, even in the seventy degree weather.

�Pardon me, I don�t suppose I could buy a smoke off you?�

�Oh!� The stout man patted his pockets while saying out loud, �I left them inside.�

I was about to turn away with another wilted wave, when he continued.

�Give me a second.�

And off he went inside. His friend smiled a bit.
�He rolls them himself.� The gentleman raised an eyebrow to that.

His friend rolled back out, toting a leather trimmed cigarette case and a wide grin. He popped it open, revealing what appeared to be a dozen odd cigarettes that looked no different that your standard Camel. The only tell tale sign of a non-professional packing was the amount of loose tobacco dancing about in the case. He handed one over, and I went into my pocket for a dollar.

�No, no. See what you think. They�re a little strong.�

I pinched the cigarette and felt a filter pushing back. I�d seen people roll filters into their smokes before, but the wrapper on this was perfect. The writing stopping just before the filter. It could have been a body double for a Marlboro.

�I�ve got a machine. Rolls it right up.�

He lit the cigarette for me and immediately the difference jumped at me. He wasn�t wrong, the tobacco was strong, and it hit the back of my throat like sand paper. When I glanced down at the smoke, though, a full quarter of the thing had gone up in a plume of white wisps. The tar-baby may have looked pretty, but there was about a third of the tobacco of a normal smoke in it. It would have taken all of five strong pulls to drag that cig to the filter.

�Thanks. It is strong. Much obliged.�

�Well, enjoy it.�

I saluted, this time earnestly. And walked around the corner. I laughed a little at the strange little smoke. The tobacco was fantastic, the aesthetics perfect, but all in all...hollow.

�Man needs to learn how to pack,� I thought.

I was chuckling as I sat down on my scooter. I was chuckling as I looked up into the mirror. And I will forever remember that I was smoking the best dressed half cigarette in the world, when I looked into my scooter�s rear view mirror, and saw my first grey hair sticking out the side of my head.

I wished I�d asked for at least two smokes from the gentlemen at the bar.

P.S. When I got home I spent a full ten minutes staring at my side burns in the mirror. Grey hairs are hard to tell from blond ones. Many a second opinion will be requested tomorrow.

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