The Cigar as Metaphor

I’m always looking for symbols and significance in my life. I always like to start things at a particular time and I’m obsessed with tracking things precisely. And I’m always looking for things to symbolize moments in my life, objects that can serve as reminders for important ideas or commitments.

I’m never certain why I do this, however, because they never work. I can have the most poignant symbolic object sitting on my desk and all it generally does is make me feel guilty for not following through on whatever the heck it was it represented in the first place, which I may well have forgotten by the time I remember it's there.

But my latest symbolic acquisition seemed a little too pitch-perfect to pass up. I had spent the day at my parents’ house “grading” (I don’t have class on Fridays, so I usually try to use it to catch up on work from the rest of the week; this rarely works). I hadn’t done well; I spent a lot of time piddling around with Lord knows what (no, really; I honestly can’t remember what I did half the time). As I was leaving, I grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and noticed my dad was keeping a handful of cigars in there again. So I took one.

Now, despite Garrett’s claims that I smoke and drink (based on the fact that I imbibe wine and smoke my pipe half a dozen times a year), I don’t really engage in too many such vices. But I have smoked the occasional cigar, for no very good reason other than it seems like a manly thing to do. This is almost certainly an extremely convincing argument for the idea that our parents have a lot of influence on us. My dad smoked cigars at only two times: when we went camping and when we went to baseball games. I probably saw him with a cigar three times a year. But it always somehow had an air of manliness and coolness thereby, and so I have been corrupted. Be careful, parents. And no, so far I haven’t smoked in front of my children and don’t intend to. Though one day the boys will find out and their life will follow the very very mildly incautious path that mine has. Better that than them discovering my serial killing, anyway.

At any rate, I climbed into the truck, opened up the windows, lit up, and headed for home. I was a little nervous because there was a good deal of wind in the car and my brain kept picturing a random ember sailing off the big ol’ stogie and setting the mountain aflame and me going to jail. Not the best thing to have on your mind while you’re driving a stickshift one-handed because you have a burning log of tobacco in your other hand. And while it wasn’t a bad cigar, it was a cigar, so by it’s nature it was not all that nice.

Halfway home, it suddenly struck me that I held in my mortal hand a nearly perfect metaphor for much of my life. I was engaged in an activity that had no real purpose, and had you asked me why, I would have been stumped for an answer. It had no redeeming value, could bring me nothing of worth, and was, in fact, bad for me and rather dangerous. I wasn’t even enjoying the experience, yet I continued out of some bizarre sense of I don’t know what. And I was feeling guilty even as I did it, yet did not stop because I felt like I might not have a chance to engage in this particular behavior at a later time. It was all about following a momentary whim and being unwilling or unable to tear myself away, even when I could clearly see that was the most intelligent solution.

Sad, really. But at least in the last few days, I’ve been able to ask myself if any activity I’m engaged in is a “cigar-smoking” moment. It’s sobering, so I’ll hang on to it for as long as it works (if precedence is anything to go by, that will be about a week and a half. We’ll see).

And, in case you were wondering, yes, I missed my second post last night. My excuse: I tried to post at about 11:30pm but the system was down for maintenance. I went out, sat down on the couch, and promptly fell dead asleep. Didn't wake up until 7am this morning, despite Joanna's having a lengthy conversation with me about 1am. So perhaps my body required rest of some kind. Seems bizarre to me, but I can't deny the evidence.

I'm off to play computer solitaire, eat some congealed bacon fat, and whack myself on the head with a meat tenderizer. Goodnight, all.