The "Incident"

When I was younger and wilder I smoked many cigars (I also had many leather-bound books). So what if many of those "cigars" were "Black & Milds"? Those things were like candy for your lungs. Delicious and tantalizingly sweet. I loved them.

As I grew older I stepped into the world of real cigars and started smoking stogies with my girlfriends every now and then. Not as delicious as Black and Milds, but they made me feel like a woman. No more candy cigars for this girl. No siree. I moved on to bigger and better things.

I haven't smoked one in a while, but my boyfriend and I have been discussing smoking cigars together for the last few weeks and we finally decided to do this on Friday before I left town for the weekend. I was having an excellent day that Friday. I don't work on Fridays, so they have become my Sabbath. I read, I relax, I drink coffee, I do yoga, etc. It is delightful.

This Friday was just like any other. I did all of my favorite things and then I went over to Nick's house to hang out for a bit before heading up to the mountains. He pulls out his humidor (how very manly of him), picks out two cigars a friend had given him from Mexico, and we go out to the back porch to smoke.

Everything is going very smoothly at this point. He clips the ends and I light mine. Which, by the way, I'm very proud of myself for being able to do. The last time I tried to light something it was a pipe and I failed miserably. I couldn't keep it lit for the life of me. This memory, and the fear of my cigar going out, ultimately led me down the road of destruction. Well that, and the fact that I consume everything very quickly. Hot drinks, food, alcoholic drinks (bad move), and apparently cigars.

Those of you who have ever smoked something quickly know where this is headed. That's right. It all started with a little light-headedness. I tried to fight this by sitting down on the window ledge and taking deep breaths. But it all went sour because I didn't stop smoking my cigar at this point. Oh no, that would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, I continued smoking my cigar and continued getting light headed. I handed my cigar to Nick. I went downstairs. I got a cup of cold water. I went back upstairs. Bad move. The motion of going up and down the stairs was a little more than my stomach wanted to handle and I started feeling nauseous. Great.

At this point I'm done. I have nothing left to prove to myself or this cigar and I call it quits. I leave Nick to the rest of his cigar and go downstairs to lay on the couch for a bit. Laying on the couch is nice. Comforting. Cozy. And the fetal position is always a welcomed relief to any and all stomach ailments. Fifteen minutes later I'm starting to feel a bit better. Fifteen minutes later is also when my ride to the mountains shows up. I get in her car and we hit the road.

If I thought the stair were bad, the open road was way worse! Never ever mix nausea with a car ride. It is the worst! Jess is driving and I am sitting in the passenger seat clutching my pillow, eyes tightly shut, taking deep breaths and drinking water. Nick suggested I try to eat something since I hadn't eaten in several hours so I break out an apple and convince myself I'm going to be fine.

Well that was a lie. I was not fine. And at 4:30pm on a busy Denver road I felt all of my hopes and dreams rise to the surface. Oh wait. Those were not hopes and dreams rising. Those were the contents of my stomach. "Jess, I think you're going to need to pull over" I say. "Are you serious?!" she says as she drives along in the left-hand lane of a busy highway with no shoulder and no exits anywhere near. What happened next was neither classy nor ladylike, although Jess maintains I was very quiet. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say I found myself with my head out the window watching tiny pieces of my apple fly behind me. Oh, and fly into my hair. Yum.

Jess is finally able to pull off the highway exclaiming "I don't know where to go! We're in Mexico!" until we find a gas station where I can wash out my hair and get a Sprite. Which, by the way, is really not all that helpful in settling stomachs. Why do all mothers give their children Sprite when they're sick? The nostalgia was the only comfort it provided.

I walk back to the car in as dignified a manner as I can muster, check out the side of the car, see that I was at least lady-like in my placement of the apple as the car is in tip-top shape, and we hit the road again.

I was able to hold it together the rest of the way up although the nausea lasted for at least another hour. And by the time I got to the top was feeling pretty good.

Lesson learned. I have sworn off cigars and any other type of tobacco product for a long time. My stomach has become quite the sissy in my old age and I don't feel like putting it through the ringer again if I don't have to.

But apparently someone thought I should overcome my sensitivity by brute force and signed me up for an online cigar website. Clever. If anyone is interested follow this link. Maybe you can get me a set for Christmas. Maybe I'll be over my fear by then....