After surviving through an episode of American Idol with my wife this evening she retired upstairs to bed to leave me sitting on the couch with a sense of abandonment. I understand that she worked today and she was entitled to a good nights sleep. However, i was not ready for bed and i had the next day off. I have been thinking about the many samples of tobacco i had been given at the Chicago Pipe show just the other day. So i opened the box in which i store the samples and chose a sample. I picked one of my corn cobs and carefully filled it with a sample that left me with one additional bowl full. I proceeded to the bar and poured a generous amount of Kettle One vodka over ice with a wedge of lime. I stepped out onto the back porch to a pleasant Chicago spring evening and aranged my pipe, lighter, tamper and cocktail on the porch table. I took a deep breath and exhaled all my tensions of the day. I put fire to tobacco and got the pipe smoking to perfecton. After many pulls and puffs i decided this sample was an extreme pleasure and i wanted more after the bowl was completely empty. Oh and of course the cocktail had vanished as well. I proceeded back inside to the box of many samples and found the pouch in which i chose from thirty minutes earlier only to discover the sample i had chosen was not marked. I cant tell you all the many flavors or pleasantries of this smoke, dont know if it contained burley, latakias, or flue cured. I am the new guy. I am the man who decided pipe smoking is a good thing. A pleasurable thing. A thing that needs to be exposed to all people of the world. A time to relax, slow down, and enjoy. I will not be able to order more of this sample or age it for many years. I have only the memory of this night, this smoke, and one last bowl.
