Insane

Warning: Capnolagnia content follows

The last blog on my to-read list this morning consisted of an angry protest about sitting down in the park and having two Women proceed to sit next to this person and light up cigarettes.

Oh, the blogger was mad, mad, mad! How dare they, how come this always happens? She wrote, and Her readers concurred and commiserated.

What a strange world we live in. She curses what I crave. She experiences, and hates, what I long for, and never obtain.

I'm a reasonably well-traveled, non-threatening looking guy. Yet it's been at least a decade or more since any Woman ever sat down near me and lit up a cigarette -- it just doesn't happen. I go every possible place they do with the exception of bars, not being a drinker.

Dear Blogger, I'd trade with You, if only it were possible. We'd both be thrilled.

Only twice in my life do I remember such a blissful moment -- and both were prematurely interrupted. I was a teenager signing up for the military in a Seattle office building, about 1989. I sat down on a bench in the lobby and a lovely brunette sat beside me and took out a cigarette.

My mother had driven me to the place and, being unaware of my odd desire -- She certainly wouldn't have approved anyway -- chose that moment to return from the restroom or wherever She was in the building and take us home.

A few years later, another brunette, dressed in lovely white, sat Herself beside me at the ferry terminal. Again, scarce had Her cigarette left its pack when my grandfather appeared, for I had called to let him know of my arrival and need for a ride home.

Doubt he would have understood if I had said, "Uh, Gramps, can you wait about five minutes until I indulge this absolute moment of ecstasy and the Lady here finishes Her cigarette?"

So, cursing myself by all the epithets I could muster for having made the phone call when I did -- why hadn't I waited just a few damn minutes? -- I followed him to his car and out of the Garden of Eden with the Forbidden Fruit utterly untasted.

So unfair. Life is so very unfair.