Category Archives: Mood Mambo

(I’m) Stranded

1 Reply

Late news breaking, late news breaking. Not really news, just the usual blah blah blah from me. Just got back from a late snack with Julio. He with his hummus and pita and me with a burger. And some Stella Artois to accompany the meals.

A good time, a nice talk. He’s still a good guy and a good friend.

It was quite a hot day today, 90 degree range, closer to 100 degrees than I would have hoped. Quite humid out, so much so that by the time I got to the office I was drenched with sweat.

I don’t take the subway on weekends since the service really falls off on Saturday and Sunday. I did stop by the Farmer’s Market and picked up some cookies for the co-workers again. Just a little something nice, something sweet to glue the team together.

No Richard III auditions today. But there was a different type of royalty that visited the cigar shop this afternoon. Specifically the Prince of Morocco. Really.

There were a number of Middle Eastern guys standing outside the shop for an hour or so this afternoon, no one paying them much mind. Then a few of them came in and checked things out, followed by a handsome man in an emerald green polo shirt.

He checked out a few cigar punches and almost didn’t buy them until I demonstrated how they are used best with a large ring gauge cigar, which just so happens to be the ring gauge I prefer. He bought 2 cigar punches.

Then he asked to see some lighters and I showed them to him. He picked out 5 different lights and then left, leaving someone else to pay the $1500.00 bill.

It was my sale and I couldn’t have completed it without the help of Raymond, Don Birch and Sean, so I treated them to some milk chocolate covered pretzels from Godiva. They were surprised by my gratitude, so unaccustomed to behavior like this.

Luckily for me the pretzels were on sale, 3 boxes for $10.00.

It was the highlight of my day. The Prince also stopped by the leather goods shop next door where he dropped $20,000. It was more low key after the visit from Moroccan royalty. The 4 of us just passing the time, Don Birch waiting until he can leave at 7:30.

Sean, Raymond and I hung I there until 9:00. Sean and Raymond split after that, I stayed behind to close up the shop as that is my duty.

I hustled down to the bus terminal in 15.9 minutes, from Something About England to The Crooked Beat from the Clash’s Sandinista.

It being the weekend people in the terminal didn’t know of escalator protocol, instead of staying to the right if you’re not climbing the stairs on the escalator. I opted to climb the stairs next to the escalator, taking 2 at a time to make my bus.

I was doing well, listening to the Clash until I got to the top step where I tripped and landed on my hands and knees. It must have made for a sight for the escalator clots.

I gathered whatever it was that I dropped and quickened my pace to my gate where I found the bus had departed. In front of me was an Asian dude who started talking to me about how hot it was. As It got more crowded and I inched toward him I could smell the booze coming out of his pores.

I was glad to make it to Hoboken and glad to have a late meal with Julio who couldn’t stop laughing when I told him of my fall at the top of the stairs. I knew he would get a giggle out of it.

Still quite hot and Bill’s in Atlantic City.

Ace of Spades

Leave a reply

So tired, but it’s a good tired if there is such a thing. I wrote this last night as a start, a way to remember what to write about. “Raymond likes the Beatles.” That’s as far as I got. But it’s true.

Raymond likes the Beatles. He reminds me of Rocky, the guy who used to run the loading dock at Wanker Banker, only without the lying and the cocaine abuse. When the store quieted down, after Calvin left we played Rubber Soul and he insisted on hearing In My Life twice. I didn’t mind.

Yesterday I also sent an email to Greg Stevens, from the old job. I just wrote that if he had any cigar smoking clients, to send them my way. He called back and wished me well, then had a question for me. It seems his printer was out of paper and he didn’t know how to load the paper in.

I told him, most printers have a tray and he looked but couldn’t find it. I asked him what model it was, thinking I could look it up online and figure it out, but he didn’t know that either, having tried to find an instruction manual and failing at that.

Poor Greg, so lost.

He was going to have to wait until his wife’s assistant came in today to put paper in his printer. Last night I worked the late shift which is why I posted yesterday morning. I came home and Bill was waiting for me.

It was awfully hot in the apartment and that was because the windows weren’t open. Bill was comfortable in the warmth, I was distressed. He claims because he’s Puerto Rican warm temperatures are no big thing. I just walked to each window, opening them and saying, ‘Oh my god it’s so hot in here’.

He went to bed a little while after that and I was in bed by 11:45. I’m pretty sure I was asleep by midnight. Woke up Bill was gone. He kissed me goodbye but I don’t remember it. An Eskimo kiss was involved as well. I more than likely growled.

Made my way onto the bus, stuck in traffic outside the Lincoln Tunnel next to a guy who kept trying to look at photographs in the New Yorker I was reading. I did not oblige. Subway ride uptown, not enough time to chill out in the shade of a skyscraper.

I was opening the store with Marcus. It went well. I am officially in the computer system. Counted monies and then had a quick cigarillo with Marcus in the back room. Slow start of the day and around 11:30 Don rolled in.

He was described to me once as Lurch and I can see why. He’s really an introvert. Raymond called him a hippie the other night but I don’t see it. I did meet Don’s girlfriend the other night when we closed. Seemed to me like she was in the 60, but maybe I was just tired.

Anyway I’ll call the one that Calvin calls Lurch, Don Birch. A pun if you will about either the John Birch Society (of which our Don is not a member of) or being as stiff as a tree. It’s up to you.

It was mentioned that I should spend my lunch hour in the back room with the customers and have a cigar with them. I’m reluctant to do that. I work a 10 hour day and have an hour for lunch. I would like to spend that 1 hour away from the cigar shop rather than spend the entire 10 hours within the same four walls.

I did spend some time with the customers yesterday, and some of them were surprised to see me. I explained once again that I do enjoy being outside in the world on occasion, whereas they choose to spend their time away from the world, secluded in the back room smoking cigars.

I like sitting on a bench by Central Park, smoking cigars.


Bill had Grimaldi’s pizza waiting for me when I came home. Nice.