Even before Texas' latest tax hike, it became clear that a heavy smoking habit was unrealistic even for a full-time worker having no dependents, a car, or cable TV. After cigarettes and bills, I only had $80 a month for food, my cat's needs and everything else. Cutting down probably wouldn't help, while any less than 30 a day is just enough to piss me off.
Pulmonary love was dead to me; I no longer needed it. I retired my special chrome cigarette lighter and consulted my pipe rack, a pristine beauty I scored at a thrift store for $2. Prince Albert Crimp Cut is the all-day smoke I crave every day. It's been around since 1907 and the reasons are clear. The stuff burns well and tastes like pipe tobacco should; this is the real deal. At $3 a pouch, money is no object. At present, that is.
I just “Googled” the Prince's illustrious name. Oh, my God. Against all remaining decency in the not actually free world, the blend's image has been unspeakably defiled by present-day vulgarians. Formerly known as a dear piece of Americana, “Prince Albert” is now slang for some goddamn male genital piercing! Damn the purveyors and partakers straight to Hell just so I can watch them burn.
Obviously, “male piercing” is an oxymoron. Jewelry is great; I wear a men's ring and a men's bracelet, but there is no damned piercing that a man should wear. Paying to have your penis mutilated only proves you are disturbed in addition to tragically stupid. Put on a dress and go die somewhere, dolt-ass loser.
Freaks obsessively strive to make a statement and always in the most moronic way possible. You didn't need any piercing; we already knew you were an ass clown. These worthless, degenerate wads of gutter-trash would film a filth fetish orgy on the American flag just to act cute and piss off your mother.
I digress. I couldn't live without mentioning that. Now the healing can begin.
Quitting cigarettes took a bizarre turn. At work in the produce department, I craved the old surge of nicotine. Not wanting to cripple my transition to pipes, I opted for dip rather than smokes. I've always thought of smokeless tobacco as vomitous to witness and only for disgusting losers.
Article comments
1 - Jack
I think I'm going to faint. The keyword coded Amazon link pointed to "316L Surgical Steel Curved Barbell with Ball Spacial for Prince Albert Piercing, 0G, 5/8 - Sold as a Pair"
2 - Piping Hot
Pipe tobacco can be rolled into a cigarette - most pipe tobacco is quite good, especially if it isn't topped too much with aromatics and flavor additive casings.
Tobacco, after all, is tobacco.
Manufactured cigarettes, on the other hand, are a whole other animal...mostly not tobacco.
3 - Joe Harris
Yes, Carter Hall makes an especially good makeshift cigarette. Hopefully, we can keep this on the down low to save pipe smokers from a swift tax-raping.
As more cigarette smokers attempt to convert, pipe smoking will be assailed with yet more bullshit. Relatively little research has been done on pipe smoking. While some of the research has been on the favorable side, we don't need any goddamn studies giving ammo to the rabid, worthless, intolerant anti-smoking cartel. Yeah, we know smoking is unhealthy. Fuck off and die, crusader slime.
Meanwhile, the free world assumes that anything negative said about smoking must be true and that smokers have no right to mind their own damn business. Potheads are given more consideration these days.
4 - Dr Dreadful
Cough hack spew... My grandfather smoked 60 a day... hack hack choke cough... and lived till he was 95... hurl hack gasp convulse... of course he couldn't open his mouth without Jackson Pollocking the opposite wall with phlegm... cough cough hack gasp splutter flail thud
5 - Ruvy
I don't know, DD. I was hocking up something terrible a day or two ago and you would have thought that I'd inherited my father's three pack a day unfiltered Camel's habit. The last time I smoked was when I was 8 years old - my dad told me to inhale deeply on the lit cigarette (his unfiltered Camel) and I damn near puked from the coughing fit I got.
I never toughed a cigarette again. If I were to smoke at all, it would be a pipe, but with the problems I have with my lungs, I stay away from the stuff.... With my luck, I'd lip have cancer in a week. Nah - time for me to indulge in my drug of choice - coffee....
My wife, reading over my shoulder, mentioned that her drug of choice is chocolate....