January | 2013 | johnozed

It’s been one of those days again. It’s ten days into this new year and already I’ve had a few of those days. Last night I wound up closing the cigar shop, I was there for 12 hours and I will be getting a nice box of Davidoff cigars for my trouble. I just hope those cigars aren’t as bitter as I have heard them to be. Time will tell I suppose. I have a feeling they won’t be Davidoff per se, but rather the AVO Special Toro which I think will suit me just fine. AVO is owned by Davidoff, for those wandering the shopping mall.

I am glad I was able to help them out, they needed someone they could trust on such short notice and it turned out that that someone was me. And once again since I had nothing else to do I didn’t mind. I wish I had known it would be so long but it worked out. Today I got a text from Shlomo, asking once again. Of course I asked if he had the promised cigars and Shlomo said they were on their way. Not from Davidoff but from another distributor from Pennsylvania.

So as Shlomo requested I went in again. He wasn’t around but I figured out why he needed me there. Apparently he ordered a fish tank and he was not going to be around to sign for it. And neither Israel nor Brandon would be available. It fell to me to sign for it and it’s a good thing I stayed up all night practicing my signature. Sure I could have signed anything, I could have even written an ‘X’ next to the X on the page but no, I wanted my name to be legible, I mean what would the GZA have to say about that?

And it was a fairly large tank, thankfully not filled with water, but rather Styrofoam peanuts which are annoying as hell. So I signed and directed them to where the fish tank should go. I’m not sure if they will keep the fish tank in the cigar shop or not. I guess they will or else they would have had it delivered to wherever it is that it is supposed to go. Then again as much as I like Shlomo, Israel and Brandon, communication is not their strong point. Maybe it is in Hebrew or Yiddish but English- not so much.

Shlomo showed up soon after the delivery which made me think he was sitting in his BMW watching the whole thing take place. I thought I would be there by myself for the day but Shlomo came and sat and watched Homeland on his computer while I watched Bob’s Burgers on my tablet. After an hour or so it seemed that Shlomo wasn’t going anywhere and I realized there was no need for me to be there. So I split and did some spelunking on the Palisades.

Looking for an answer, trying to find a sign. Then I saw those city lights, and honey I was blind.

Karma Police

Well today has been spent in the cigar shop. All day and a lot longer than I expected. Last night, an urgent text from Shlomo came in, asking me to stop by the cigar shop. Since I had nothing on the agenda today I told him that I would stop by. I had a feeling that once again it would be ‘can you sit in the shop for an hour or two’. I was partially correct and glad I brought a lunch with me. Sure enough it was that but instead of an hour or two it was about four hours.

It keeps me out of trouble and off the streets and stocked with cigars so I am not complaining. I have my iPod cranking out Blondie, The New Yorker and my tablet so I am set. It’s fairly quiet in the cigar shop, the January doldrums in the retail world. I remember it well from Farfetched as well as other establishments I have frequented. I still miss Farfetched. It was this time of year in 2009 that that ship was slowly sinking due to unwanted pressure from that neighboring idiotic goth store. I still can’t believe they’re in business.

Last night Bill came home full of ideas for his one man show. It should be good, I had some ideas for him. He was getting so far ahead of himself and I felt he needed to be reminded to reel it in somewhat. Bill was taken aback slightly but once I made my case he seemed to understand it. He wants to shoot a video as part of the show and since I did a bang up job on Christmas Day out in Wally World, I will be recording this next installment. He’s been storyboarding what he wants which should help.

Of course between now and then anything could happen. He told me on Christmas Day what he wanted then left me in the cold as he jockeyed buses to and fro in that Arctic parking lot by the former National’s Department store. By the time Bill was ready I had a new idea which worked just fine. He posted it on Facebook so some of you have seen it, for everyone else you should friend Bill. I forgot how good I am behind the camera, it had been a while despite having over 150 videos on YouTube of myself.

But those of course are mainly still shots of me smoking a cigar. Sure some guys in Taiwan enjoyed looking at my over the calf socks and let me know how much they enjoyed my socks and how they wished that they were 6 inches tall so I could step on them to their sexual gratification. I was more than happy to oblige since they are all the way on the other side of the world and actual shrinkage to 6 inches is impossible for even me, thereby disproving the Irish curse once again.

“I love destroying myths”, said the spouse of a size queen.