An explosion of awesome!

"I should buy those," I said, although I pretty much say that daily about a variety of cigars.

[source]

Sometimes I actually buy them. Sometimes I don't--for a variety of reasons, including I forgot about it or was distracted by something else. (Dust motes? Possibly. Ginger ale bubbles? Maybe. Another episode of Archer? Always.)

The world stops when this is on,
regardless of the time or prior commitments.

Thankfully, sometimes Facebook is an awesome secretary. Pal Barry Stein (Hi Barry!) of Two Guys SmokeShop in New Hampshire told us (okay, told the Facebook world) about the TatuajeM80.  Unless you're new to the blog,* you know Valentino and I love love love almost anything limited edition or hard-to-find. Plus...Tatuaje, so....

Barry's a wily bugger.  First, he said, "Hey, we have these. They're made for us and only us!"** and later, "Only xx boxes left!" And then "Really, they're almost gone!"

 

One morning, I was lying in bed, procrastinating getting up because mornings can be assholes. I flipped through Facebook and there was Barry again. His message pretty much said, "For reals. This is it. They're going to be gone in nanoseconds!"

I started filling out the info, squinting because my glasses were out of reach, and hoping the system held my credit card info from the last purchase.  Nope. Maybe they take PayPal? Nope.  I didn't want to get up. Nope. Not for anything.

Dammit. I could wait and finish the order when/if I got up. It's not like they'd sell out, right?

But what if they did and I missed out due to pure laziness? That would be sucktacular every time someone splashed a picture of the M80 mid-smoke.

I trounced, no shambled, no, stumbled down the stairs for my wallet and card, entered the requisite info, and hit Submit Order, all the while holding my breath.

Shortly afterwards, Barry posted Two Guys had sold out. I happily wrote "I got mine!" while feeling a little giddy, as if I'd just been accepted into the cool kids club. He told me I got the next-to-last box.

I headed back to bed, but that ship had pretty much sailed. You can't and shouldn't interrupt laziness with productivity. That's just stupid and I know better, but I did it, all for the love of the leaf. (See what I did there? Said the name of the blog in the blog?)

I kind of forgot about them as I scurried around in preparation*** of Valentino's return from a week-long golf trip.

 

 

Then, the day of his return, a package arrived. 

"What did you buy?" he asked.

I crinkled my forehead  with perplexitude. "I have no idea."

He opened it and...

 

We decided to save them for a 4th of July party at newly-minted Caballero #3's house, which seemed apropos.

And so this happened.

 

L-R My boy, our hero, Caballero #3, and Caballero #2

"This is fucking good," Valentino said on the third puff of this 4 x 50 with an Ecuador Habano Oscuro wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and filler. He waited that long to tell me because I was noticeably absent during the first two.****

 

Some guy at the party said, "I'm going to have to have to get some of those."

 

None for you!
(Unless you already have them, of course.)

 

"No," our hero said, a wee bit smugly. "You can only get those at one place and they're sold out. Penny got one of the last boxes."

I'll admit a bit of smugness as well. Yay me! Yay American Express!

Of course this means he's going to ration these to the point where he won't actually smoke them. And now I'm mad I didn't get the last two boxes. When am I ever going to learn?

As I'm sitting here writing this, I remembered that I currently have a box of LFD Firecrackers, also only available at Two Guys, in that shop's online shopping basket. Letting those go because of cupcakes and words would be a shame, so I hit SAVE on this very blog post, and ordered them. What are the chances I'm going to remember that I ordered them? Not very good, if you must know.*****

But when they do arrive, you'll be the first to know. Well, not first. But as far as you know, you'll be the first.

Will misunderstood our M80 discussion.

 

 

*In which case, HELLO! how are you? You look very pretty today.

**Paraphrase

***Cleaning, but not that "everything is messy and he's going to flip if I don't do it," but instead, "Crap, I have seven pieces of paper randomly strewn on the counter and the vacuum lines have disappeared from the carpet" clean. But still, it was making me crazy.

****there were CUPCAKES that needed to be eaten and I take that job seriously.

*****However, I CAN remember that John Lennon died in 1980, even though I never really paid much attention to him or his music at that point. Also, Sammy Davis Jr. and Jim Henson died on the same day. (There are people sitting near me talking about celebrities and when they died. These two fun facts popped into my head during their convo.  Because I am socially awkward, I kept these thoughts to myself and my nose in my iPad.)