Third day of the new year. Slept incredibly well, crazy dreams, sexual in nature. Nothing overt but there it was in the undercurrent. Something involving time cards and a punch clock located in belts.

Then in a different dream, I bought a pack of Marlboro while walking around Columbus Circle and 58th St. I had one cigarette, not even a full cigarette and didn’t enjoy it very much. Then I had a dream where I was interviewing, or auditing a hip company, similar to the one my sister mentioned on Facebook yesterday.

White offices and things seemed to be going well until the head honcho in the office turned to me and said’ You know we don’t allow smoking here’. I couldn’t really say I stopped smoking cigarettes since I still had the pack of Marlboro from the previous dream and my breath smelled of cigarettes.

Needless to say I don’t think I got the job, much like the groovy job Annemarie told me about. I answered the questions truthfully and at the end they described their ideal candidate who would happen to be a college graduate which is something I am not. Still I sent forth my info, allowing them to be hopefully dazzled by my stellar personality and my way with words.

Already I have gotten the call from Shlomo, could I open up the cigar shop. Being 23 degrees out, he can’t get his poor old car to move. I had no problem with it, and to my surprise an hour after opening in walks Shlomo.Maybe it is the cold but he seems slower than usual, the slo mo Shlomo.

Now this is the part that gets stuck in my craw. I want to help these guys succeed. And with no smoking allowed in the store I wind up enforcing that ban. The other day a young man bought a cigar and I gave him a book of matches to get his cigar lit. He came back a few seconds later asking to light it indoors. I said no, and took a torch lighter and went outside with him and lit it for him.

Shlomo doesn’t believe in those types of rules and smokes wherever he wants, even if it means the local Board of Health shutting him down. That’s fine with me, I have nothing invested in the shop except for my time. If the place gets shut down I will just find something else to do.

And if it because of one of the owners smoking in the shop, then so be it. I can tell because a few times since I opened I noticed ashes on the floor which meant smoking was going on in the shop. But it’s not my shop and the owners, well they can do anything they want, it is their sandbox after all.

I am merely a nice guy, helping them out, but as the saying goes, I can’t help them unless they help themselves and to my untrained eye, it seems that they don’t want any or need any help, except for this one guy who can be relied upon to open the shop when it is too cold out for their Zionist hoodlum tuchis.





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