Cigars

I’m not short on vices, and my favorite one by far is smoking cigars.

I never would have guessed I’d pick up that habit, but I’ve had it for a good seven years now and have no plans to quit.

I tried a cigarette once in college. Hated it and couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth all afternoon. That was the first and last thing I lit on fire in my mouth until I decided to try a cigar.

I don’t have any recollection of when exactly I smoked my first cigar or who I was with. I feel like Mike Carroll was involved but not entirely sure. Regardless, it certainly didn’t become a regular thing for quite a while. I was maybe smoking one cigar a month, and this was low-quality shit we’re talking about. I ordered a starter kit from an online site. It was a tin humidor, 30 sticks, and a lighter that broke the second time I used it for $30. Might as well have been smoking sticks from the backyard.

All of that changed one fateful day when a buddy of mine who was a serious cigar aficionado said he needed to offload some of his inventory. He was smoking about seven cigars a day and wanted to get that down to three or four, so he was getting rid of the cigars he kept in his office at work. I met him over there and he gave me about 120 sticks, a really nice humidor, and two travel humidors for $300. The humidors alone were probably worth almost that much, and these were some fine cigars. Now that I know more about cigars, I know that those cigars would have averaged more than $10 per stick retail. And he had obviously taken care of them so they were perfectly fine. If I were smarter, I probably would have just re-sold all of that stuff immediately and made a quick $1000 but I wanted my mouth to smell like ash for the next 40 years.

The funny part of the purchase was when my buddy pulled out the five-cigar travel humidor. He showed it to me and said, “Now, what if you go to Vegas for a weekend? Are you going to want to smoke five cigars?” I shook my head no, because at that time five cigars was enough to get me from Memorial Day to Halloween. “No,” he said. “You’re going to want a lot more than that, which is why I’m giving you this 18-cigar travel humidor as well.”

(Postscript: I still have the 18-stick humidor, but the only time it’s ever had cigars in it was when I went home from his office. That’s because all three humidors were filled to the max to hold my 120 cigars. I still use the five-cigar humidor every time I go out of town though.)

That initial jackpot stash eventually disappeared, but another buddy who belonged to the same cigar lounge started selling me his excess product every time I ran low, and he also gave me great deals on them. A couple of poker buddies who don’t smoke have also gifted me some really good cigars.

Naturally, once I started smoking these higher-end stogies I started liking the whole concept a lot more. Still, I was only smoking about once a week until maybe a year ago, when I started averaging two or three.

Then this dang coronavirus thing hit. Suddenly, I was out of work. Check. The weather was beautiful almost every night. Check. And I was teaching school for all four of my kids every day. Checkmate. I started smoking every day. Occasionally even throwing a second cigar into the mix.

Let this be a lesson to the kids out there. Don’t let a lack of income or increasing personal responsibility keep you from destroying your lungs, even if there’s a global pandemic going around that also destroys your lungs.

Honestly though, there’s nothing more enjoyable than sitting on the back porch at the end of the day and relaxing, looking up at the gorgeous sky and moon, and smoking a cigar while drinking either a good beer or a couple ounces of bourbon.

Usually I like to play bridge online while I smoke. I love the game and there are ample breaks to sneak a puff or look into the sky and just breathe. Last night I got the trifecta because I kicked butt at bridge, enjoyed the cigar and listened to the Cubs win a baseball game on the radio, all at the same time.

Cigars are also a great way to have some much-needed bro time. It usually takes at least an hour to fully enjoy one, so you get past the “Hey, how ya been man?” stuff and into some deeper topics. I have a couple buddies who I get together with every once in a while, and it’s really good for the soul. My college roommate Keith, who now lives in France, came back stateside for a visit and we discovered that we’d both picked up cigars since our college days. We got together with a couple other college friends at a lounge and told the same old stories and played dominoes like we used to back in the day. It was one of the best nights of my life, and we’ve done the same thing a couple more times since when he’s come back for visits.

There are some really nice places to smoke now, my two favorites (besides my back porch) being the Pub W in Norman and the BURN lounge up north by Top Golf. They don’t have the music on so loud that you can’t talk, and now that sports are kind of back they have those on the TVs. Smoking outside when it’s 100 degrees with humidity is too much even for me.

Generally, I prefer the more full-flavored, earthy cigars. Drew Estates is my favorite line, and the Liga Privadas are my favorite offering of theirs. In fact, I’m smoking a T52 right now. I recently got a box of My Father’s, and they are excellent as well. There are lots of great cigars out there and I like to keep a variety in stock. I can’t stand the sweetened cigars, and the super-mild ones with no flavor are a waste of time. But I’ll give pretty much anything else a whirl. I usually get bigger sticks, because if I smoke a short one I’ll end up wanting another one, which can sometimes be overkill.

Every once in awhile, the cigars will kinda mess up my brain chemicals. I know I’m already walking the line as far as that goes, but it’s rare enough that I haven’t quit yet. Still, it does stink on those rare occasions when I end up feeling weird or depressed emotionally after smoking.

Speaking of stink, some of these stronger sticks will really do some damage to my breath. I’ll brush my teeth, gargle mouthwash, and I still can’t get to first base with Missy because of the smell. I can’t blame her, I wouldn’t come near myself either if I had a choice. Cost of doing business.

I’m not the only one who has increased the cigar use during the pandemic. The last time I went into the cigar shop, the cashier said they’ve had record numbers since they’ve reopened.

I probably need to cut down on my cigar use. But I probably won’t, at least not anytime soon. Like somebody once said, smoke ’em if you got ’em.