The Cohiba

I am not an expert on cigars, but I like them. I've had my share of experience with tobacco from dipping snuff as a teenager (a rite of passage among the ranch kids I hung with) and smoking cigarettes in the Army (at a tax-free thirty-five cents a pack, it was no wonder most GI's smoked). I gave up tobacco in college, although I went back to the weed now and then in the years following. But I hate to cough and I like to run. That's incompatible with cigarettes. And since I don't work outside, the frothy cup of the indoor snuff dipper would be my constant companion and bane. Add to that having kids to set an example for, tobacco was just incompatible with the rest of my life.

Putting tobacco back down after an occasional dalliance has never been a difficult thing for me, so I don't go out of my way to avoid it. When a co-worker who had been out of the country on business handed me a few cigars that he alleged to have come from an island nation with whom my country discourages trade, the allure of forbidden pleasure was too much to pass up. I received the cigars some five years ago and had kept the last one for a special occasion. I guess completing a 48-week course of interferon and ribavirin would qualify. On Christmas afternoon as the rest of the family napped or explored new toys, I found a sunny spot in the back yard and lit up. All I can say is that it's a good thing that the things are a) illegal in my country, and b) priced around $12 each. Absent those two factors and they could become a habit.