The Pain of Losing a Rocky

Rule #23: When you go to a social gathering, don't bring any cigars you aren't willing to part with. I learned this the hard way last night.

What started out as an innocent visit with friends became a nightmare of epic proportions as I saw one of the best cigars in my collection slip into the hands of a stranger.

I had looked forward to the evening with high hopes - the other hubbie and I would smoke while our wives jabbered with each other in their back yard. I hastily grabbed 4 cigars from my humidor ("Hurry up!" yelled Sally, "we're late!") and in that three-second window of decision, my whole evening's fate was sealed.

My thought process: Take one big honkin' cheap cigar, one big honkin' fantastic cigar, and two smaller, medium-quality acceptable cigars. That way I was prepared for every variation of predilection and time constraint, and might actually be able to pawn off the cheapie. But as I hastily sealed the plastic bag and threw it into Sally's purse, a disturbing thought flashed through my mind: How was I going to cordon off the fantastic one - a Rocky Patel Vintage 92 - for myself? No time to think - Sally grabbed the purse, hustled me out the door and off we sped in the car.

Turns out the other hubby wasn't even home. Instead there was a visiting cousin. Nice enough guy, and the chatting went well. When the party moved outdoors, Sally tossed the cigars on the table. "Look, Jake brought some cigars! You want to have one, Brad?"

Brad, whom I hadn't known from Adam until this night, practically yelped with pleasure. "Sure! Let's see what you've got!" His eyes fixed immediately on the Rocky Patel Vintage 92 torpedo. Factory 2nd, mind you, but damned near as good, and one I'd been looking forward to ever since smoking the two others in my humidor and realizing they constituted one of God's great gifts to creation. The last few times I'd checked the web, there were no more Vintage torpedo 2nds to be had anywhere. This looked to be the last of the breed.

"Uh, that's a Rocky Patel. Good cigar," I said, trying to sound neutral. But to no avail. Brad liked the look of it. For someone who claimed to know little about cigars, he sure gravitated to the top of the line. "You mind if I take it?" he asked, his fingers already wrapped around it.

I knew that if I hesitated, I'd hear no end of it from Sally. Why wouldn't you let him take that cigar? Why did you have to be so stingy? I think this whole cigar thing's getting out of hand. It's becoming an obsession with you... And so on. It was a conversation I didn't want to have. And so, automatically, I said: "Sure, take it. It's a great cigar." As if I was glad to bestow such an honor upon this perfect stranger. As if two beers in the living room had turned us into brothers under the skin.

And so with an aching emptiness in the pit of my stomach I tried to content myself with Rocky's cousin, an Indian Tapac Super Fuerte, which normally would have excited me but now seemed a bit of a come-down, while Brad toked on his marvelously-burning Vintage 92 and remarked with annoying regularity that it was the best cigar he'd ever had. He even let it sit in the ashtray for torturous lengths of time - 8 minutes, 9 minutes - because he'd heard somewhere that surviving such neglect was the sign of a good stogie.

To add insult to injury, my Indian Super Fuerte tasted sub-par and actually went out at the halfway point. I didn't even try to re-light it. Instead I tried to console myself with a Camacho Candela robusto, that little green friend from Honduras. Only to hear my wife say: "What? You're having another Cigar? Two in one night?"

Yeah, and these two combined aren't going to give me half the pleasure that my last Rocky would have provided. But did I dare say so? No. What would have been the point?

Sometimes you just can't win.

Live and learn. On to other smokes.