Also, please make sure your nuclear reactor is properly shielded when you order a Frosty

Okay, I'm out running some errands last week, and I decide to swing through the Wendy's drive thru for a quick burger. I place my order, drive up to the window, and this is the huge sign I see plastered on it.

You're fucking kidding me, right?

I'm in my own car. That I paid for with my own money. Which is insured with my own money. Which is fueled by my own gas, which I also pay for. At a drive thru window, obtaining food, which I also pay for. And all these things are taxed out the ass as it is. (Not to mention the exorbitant taxes on the ciggies I might have been smoking in my car at the drive thru window where I was the fucking customer). I'm not sitting in the middle of the of the dining room, with other patrons in close proximity, who may or may not smoke, lighting up a huge fucking cubano or toking off a hooka. I'm in my own car, with the wind whistling around us, and the window only open to receive the burger that I was paying for, and I'm greeted with this shit?

Let me get this straight. The local politicos are so worried about second hand smoke from someone in their own car, wafting out of a car window, through the strong breeze, across a three foot expanse, and into the Star Trek Enterprise-esque auto sealing window of a fucking fast food drive thru, and harming the workers? The workers that spend 8 hour (or more) shifts in close quarters with griddles and deep fryers and probably go home covered in enough grease to lubricate all the engines in all the aircraft carriers in the US Navy? Because that poof of smoke that makes its way out of my car, through the wind and into the window which is open for a total of about 15 seconds might cause irreparable harm to their totally healthy, oh so vulnerable meat sack?

I was tempted to put the car in park, eat my burger at the window, and enjoy smoking an entire pack of Marlboros as a post-meal treat with all the windows (and the sun roof!) open, then write a "fuck you" check for $250.

Death, now $123 cheaper

When I moved here, I was aghast at the cost of ciggies. At the supermarket, which back in the motherland generally had the cheapest smokes (along with QuickTrip), they are exorbitant. Last year, on my first trip to the grocery store, I walked up to the counter and they told me my tasty tobacky friends would be $50 per carton. Wha - huh? I was used to paying around $35 at the local Publix, and that was shocking. And that $50 was BEFORE they raised the tax on them another dollar per pack, bringing the total to $60 per carton. I begrudgingly paid that a couple of times, before I ventured back south for the Dawgs games, and "stocked up" there.

Over the course of the summer, without regular supply runs to the south (or a Dharma drop) I did some research on how to cut the prices locally. I checked out ordering by mail from an Indian reservation, but that seemed like a pain in the ass, and the Feds regulate it such that you can't order by credit card, and I didn't feel quite right mailing checks or giving my bank account info to Chief Crazy Tumor. I finally found a local c-store that claimed "lowest prices in town!" and reluctantly shelled out $52 for a carton (but I got a free bic lighter!). Thankfully, football season rolled around again, and I was able to fill a duffle bag with a few cheap cartons of smoky treats during each visit. (I had to wedge them in, because I pack like a chick). But recently, the stash I'd built up from my last trip home in November was running low, and I was wondering what I'd do. So after some googling, I realized that Virginia had one of the lowest "sin taxes" on smokes around, and figured I might plan a trip there. (Actually, I had heard this before, but I have ZERO sense of direction, and didn't realize how close it really was). I made a few phone calls, and realized that the Rite Aids and CVSs there peddled cancer for $33 per carton. I also had a few coupons sent to me by the friendly folks at Marlboro (as part of their direct mail efforts I noted down in this post) that the local c-store wouldn't accept.

So this afternoon, I drove to another state, which it turns out was only about 30 miles away. Thank Zeus for the GPS though. I picked up 6 cartons of ciggies, and used two $4 off coupons and two $3 off coupons. I figure I used about $5 worth of gas, so all in all, I came out $123 dollars "ahead" for an investment of about an hour's time. I listened to Ron Moore's podcast for last week's awesome BSG (where he frequently drinks whiskey and "turns the smoking light on" so he can blow through a half a pack of American Spirits while recording it, which seemed to fit thematically with my journey) and all in all, it was a worthwhile trip.

So, to sum up: Thank you Virginny. Frak you Maryland state government. Thank you BSG podcasts. Thank you Marlboro.

If the cancer doesn't kill me, the neuroses will

I was cleaning up the other day, and in the process of moving things off the coffee table to dust and polish, I realized how completely neurotic and OCD I am about my smoking. Not that this comes as a surprise, exactly, given how I am about most other things. But I started making a list of the things that have to be "just so" that I do, and I realized I should probably get a nice white dinner jacket that ties in the back.

For example...

• Going along with my "law of backups," I have not one but two zippos. One is always fully fueled and sitting beside a candle on the coffee table. Should the "primary" ever run out of fuel, I pick up the backup, and then immediately refuel the other one, placing it by the candle to serve as the backup. It helps to have them evenly rotated.
• Along the same lines, zippo users know that you have to have a flint to make a spark. My dad showed me a trick (damn, I feel like John Bender here) where you can store extra flints in the bottom of the outer case, below the insert/felt, so that if for some reason you run out where you don't have access to the little plastic six pack of flints, you always have one ready. If I use this trick to replace the flint, I get antsy until I can put another backup in its place.
• When I leave the house, I always put the smokes and the lighter in the same pocket. Left front.
• I'm a fan of "having the smokes where you are." Instead of opening one pack, and carrying that and one lighter around to various rooms in the house or to the car, I have a pack and a lighter everywhere I could be. The full pack and the zippo are the "traveling" combo, but I have an open pack and a lighter (disposable) on my desk at home. I have another combo in the living room. (When I had a large house back in the motherland, I had combos placed in the bedroom, the office, the kitchen and the basement). I have another combo in the car. Lazy? I mean hell, how much hassle is it to carry a lighter and a pack of smokes around? But with a little foresight, I don't even have to think about it. And how do I have so many disposable lighters? There was a tiny c-store I found here, where (for a while) they had the cheapest ciggies around (not saying much, since they fucking tax you to death here). With every carton you bought, they gave you a free Bic. So I stocked up. And of course, they're all stored in a specific rubbermaid container in the pantry. But for a while, when I was journeying back to Georgia for the ballgames, I would get cartons and cartons there (about $15 - 20 cheaper per), and they didn't give out free lighters. Without the excessive taxation, perhaps they thought it would cut into their margins. Which reminds me, I probably need to make a sojourn to Virginia, to take advantage of their more smoker-friendly pricing.
• I also get paranoid about running out of a pack, or of a supply. Right now, I have about 15 packs in the pantry, 2 in the briefcase and 3 in the car. And I'm wondering when I should restock, before the situation becomes dire. (Not that I really smoke THAT much. Probably less than a pack a day, unless it's a big drunken weekend).
• I realized I am an ambidextrous smoker. When I'm driving, I use the left hand (the world is my ashtray!). When I'm at my desk at home, I use the right (which is odd, since that's the "mouse hand.") In other situations, it just depends. I knew someone who could only use their left hand, and frequently burned themselves or dropped the ciggie when they tried to switch hands. Idiot.
• I don't use the ashtray in the car. The ashtray in the car is kind of like my tiny "junk drawer." I keep paper clips, pens, frequent shopper keychain cards -- all on one keyring with a label that says "frequent shopper, natch -- and other bullshit in there. (Change goes in a special zip bag on the left door compartment).
• I hate looking at butts. At home, where I have an ashtray, I also have an empty coke or beer can. When I'm done with the ciggie, I put it out in the ashtray, and then put the butt in the can. (Benefits: don't have to make as many trips to the trash can, don't ever inadvertently light a filter - ugh, and don't have to see the butts pile up). I lived with another smoker for a while, and the supposed deal was that we would alternate drink mixing and ashtray emptying. When one of us went upstairs to mix another round of cocktails, the other was supposed to empty the ashtray. Needless to say (especially for those of you familiar with the situation), one end of that bargain didn't always get held up. So I would then take the butts and line them side by side around the outside of the ashtray. I thought of it as a cancerous arts and crafts project. Also, you know it's time to empty the ashes from the tray when you can't see the bottom. You don't let a huge mound build up like a mini-Pompeii diorama. A while back, when my hetero lifemate was smoking, he had a pickup truck. He would throw the butts out the window, too, but would use the ashtray in the dash of the truck. But I think he emptied it once a year. It was a ginormous mountain of ash, quite possibly obscuring his view of the road. I was always afraid he'd make a quick turn one way or another, and I, in the passenger seat, would suddenly feel like I was on Mrs. O'Leary's Wild Ride (cow optional).

Crazy? Any crazier than smoking itself? I was gonna make a new year's resolution to quit. I thought about it for a few minutes, and said "eh." I assume I will eventually. (Well, of course I will eventually. Just like I'll quit watching TV, walking, breathing and drinking whiskey. But in a less definitive sense, I'll probably quit sometime in the next couple of years. I just had an end of year physical, and surprisingly, the doc told me I check out okay. Yes, even the lungs and the liver. Keith Richards can SUCK IT!).

Until then, I've got a system and I think I'll stick to it.