Tag Archives: tobacco

Cigar

Cigar: (n) a cylinder of tobacco rolled in tobacco leaves for smoking.

I work very hard at being a man.

I thought having a penis and a beard would be sufficient, but turns out, both of those things are too common to set you apart from the herd.

“Manly things done by manly men in a manly way.”

What in the hell is that?

But you shouldn’t question it too much, because that brings up the possibility of you being gay, which is not a bad thing anymore, but might connote that you are “soft.”

You know what soft is, right? Neither team wants you.

Women think you’re nice for conversation and men keep wondering when you’re going to finally turn gay.

That’s the way I feel about cigars.

I get offered cigars a lot–and by a lot, I mean more than once. People who smoke cigars are historians. They not only know all the details of the little brown tube, but where it began, who smokes this particular brand, how illegal they are, and an absolute plethora of adjectives to describe the smoothness of the taste.

In my lifetime I have smoked two cigarettes and three cigars. (Yay! Cigars win!) Anyway, I can’t truthfully tell you that I adequately partook of either experience. I did not inhale. Just like President Clinton, my morality suddenly clicked in right before taking a deep breath. So the smoke remained in my mouth, barely escaping into my nose–where it stung really, really, really bad. I struggled not to choke. (God, please don’t let me choke! I’m sitting in front of someone I want to impress and I don’t want to be choking on the $54 cigar he just presented to me.)

Yet it was unpleasant.

For two days, no matter how much teeth brushing or mouth-washing I did, cigar residue clung to the inside cave of my mouth.

I have nothing against cigarettes or cigars from an ethical or moral position, but if it’s going to be a symbol of manliness, please mark me down: “N for neuter.”

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Arcade

dictionary with letter A

Arcade: (n) short for video arcade

In 1985, the average babysitter cost about two dollars an hour. Usually an additional dollar was added for each child you encumbered upon the hapless watcher.

So I had three children, and that meant I would be paying four dollars an hour to have them observed by a stranger for a certain length of time so that I could escape and regain my sanity.

What I discovered was that it became much cheaper to drop the three of them off at the new, popular video arcades with a roll of quarters, tell them to spend it wisely and that I would be back in three hours.

The arcade was a tremendous babysitter–sometimes literally a hundred machines captivating the interest of the youngsters, with no sharp edges, tobacco or alcohol temptation or any danger that they might pursue mischief instead of destroying asteroids.

It was truly amazing.

I will grant you that they would come back from this experience in more or less a catatonic state of wonderment over when the next time would arrive, when they would be allowed to enter the mystical world of imaginary enemies and victories.

But it was quite pleasant due to the fact that it was a place your offspring could go which was separate from your home, and then they would depart and you could gradually nurse them back to consciousness of eating, chores and bathing.

When these systems became portable and could be planted in your house, the whole procedure changed. Once a child was addicted to video games, all conversation ceased, meals were ignored and the idea of cleaning one’s room was eschewed in the pursuit of killing Gargons.

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Addiction

Addiction: (n.) the condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing or activity: e.g. an addiction to gamblingdictionary with letter A

Being mortal, flawed, and yet inexplicably granted intelligence, I often find myself wanting to attribute all negative vices to others while retaining virtue unto myself. It is one of those conditions in the human race that we often refer to when awkwardly explaining our inadequacy or even calloused behavior. In other words:

“You’re addicted. I’M passionate.”

“You are disemboweled and disenfranchised by your actions. I am in the pursuit of diverse choices.”

Sometimes the best way to assist others is to find similar difficulties in ourselves. For instance, I don’t understand why people want to put a stick of tobacco in their mouth and light it up, setting their lungs ablaze. They are probably just as baffled about why I continue to eat when the meal is already completed. Yet I would be willing to justify MY actions as “harmless” while condemning theirs as evil.

No one in this society will ever be able to have mercy, and therefore grant finance, to aid those who are addicted until we are willing to admit the addictions that have crept into our own activities and our willpower.

Candidly, I don’t eat because I’m hungry. So when I see an advertisement on television, explaining how some pill or exercise will curb your appetite, I just laugh.

  • I eat for kicks and pleasure.
  • I eat because it comes to my mind that there is some food in the refrigerator yet unconsumed
  • I eat for entertainment.
  • I eat for reward.

In so doing, I allow food to dictate some of the policy of my life. It is the definition for addiction–at least in my opinion:

If any activity begins to put together your personal calendar and you find yourself shifting your efforts in favor of those choices, then you’re probably dealing with some form of addiction.

There are three things necessary to take care of addiction:

1. A climate where confession is greeted by appreciation instead of judgment.

2. An understanding that willpower is never enough without the support of others.

3. Failure is inevitable, success is rare and the race will go to he who endures to the end.

Addiction CAN be beat, but it will do well when the dictionary does not tie it to drugs and gambling, but instead, points it out as human selections of all sorts … gone awry.

 

Adams (John)

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Adams, John (1735-1826): the 2nd President of the U.S. from 1797-1801. A Massachusetts Federalist, he was a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774-78 and helped draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He negotiated the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution in 1783.

John Adams was a wild card.

Wild cards are fun. Wild cards are specific units from a deck which can be anything we need them to be in order to complete a winning hand.

In an era which included the very secular Benjamin Franklin, along with the religious and often belligerent Patrick Henry, who were crashing together to attempt a common purpose, there was a need for a wild card who could converse, argue, fuss and negotiate with both parties freely and act as a wild card for independence.

Thus, John Adams.

It is rather doubtful that the anti-slave members of the Continental Congress and the Virginia slave owners could ever have gotten together had it not been for Mr. Adams:

He made them talk instead of just stomp out of the room in anger.

He provided a reason for a stuffy Puritan from Massachusetts to at least attempt to understand a tobacco-growing country boy from North Carolina.

He made freedom the issue instead of bogging us down in continual useless conversations over preferences.

Into every generation a John Adams must be birthed. Otherwise the extremes stand at a distance and hurl rocks at one another.

Behold: the problem we see in our political system today.

We have plenty of Benjamin Franklins in our Democratic Party and an abundance of Patrick Henrys in the Republicans and Tea Parties, who are both adept at spitting across the creek at each other, finding no common canoe or even a bridge where ideas could cross back and forth.

We need a John Adams. John Adams wasn’t flamboyant or even interesting. He had a calming effect. He found a way to argue without frustration, disagree minus splitting apart, and eventually found a way to come to terms without sacrificing principles.

Although he had deep convictions, he also had a political savvy which permitted him to be a buffer between those who eat Quaker Oats and them that prefer grits.

Never forget the value of a John Adams to our Declaration of Independence.

He found a way to be friends with Thomas Jefferson even when they were bitter political enemies.

We probably do not need to be on the hunt for a better leader for our country, or even for Congress to have more acceptable members. Our generation requires a John Adams–or a plethora of them–to come in and find the means for discussion … instead of the elements of argument.