TC the Terrible

Remember how you felt when your big sister told you that Santa Claus was fake?  That all those cool presents under the tree were put there by Mom and Dad while they were yelling at you to go to bed and stay there?

Remember the tears of denial?  All those rationalizations on how your big sister was lying to you?  Then there was the day just before Christmas when the folks were out of the house having drinks with the other grown ups on the block and you got up the nerve to go look in their closet.  Viola!  There were all the gifts that you’d been asking for.

Remember that soul crushing moment?

Smoking a Cuban cigar for the first time in almost a decade isn’t that bad.  It’s in the same ball park.  Just not that ultimately bad.

Back at the turn of the century I was a very casual cigar smoker.  At most I’d light and hold two or three a year.  But I was doing business with some guys that made regular flights to the Caribbean and since they were in small planes that didn’t clear customs anyway they always brought back Cuban Cohiba cigars.   Some times, as part of doing business, they’d toss a few my way.  Some I smoked, some I traded for stuff I thought I needed and some I just flat gave away.

Here in the desert Cuban Cohiba cigars are rather easy to come by.  (If Allah is smiling on you, the ones you buy might not even be dried out.  Every humidor I’ve seen here, be it in the PX or the Haji shops, is stuck under 40% relative humidity.  But I digress.)  Easy but not cheap, and trust me Haji-man knows exactly what the going price is.  Still, it’s a Cuban right?  The Holy Grail of cigar smokers.

Not.

Maybe I’m an idiot, but I can’t honestly taste that big of a difference.  The Padron I had last week is just as good a smoke.  So was the Nat Sherman for that matter.  Granted the Cohiba was a notch above the Rocky Patel Decade Maduro, but it was a small  notch at best.

So tell me what I’m missing here.  Has the desert gone to my head and confused all my senses?  Or have Cuban cigars simply become a modern myth, like Bigfoot and strippers that are going to nursing school?  I don’t know the answer to that.  I do know that if I’m running low and Haji-man wants to get righteous on his pricing I’ll buy a few more.  But I also know that my parents were the ones shoving the presents under the tree while I  tried not to fall asleep.

SABER SQUELCH out.

1. Create a new file in your computer.
2. Name it ‘Barack Obama’.
3. Send it to the Recycle Bin.
4. Empty the Recycle Bin.
5. Your PC will ask you: ‘Do you really want to get rid of ‘Barack Obama?’
6. Firmly Click ‘Yes.’
7. Feel better? GOOD! – Tomorrow we’ll do Nancy Pelosi followed by Harry Reid the next day
SABERR SQUELCH out. .