Sancho, I Done You Wrong

Why, why, WHY do I keep making the same mistake? Taking a big, fat, lay-around-the-shanty cigar to social events when there's no way in Hell I'll have time to smoke it.

This time, it was a wedding reception. Eternal optimist that I am, I packed three cigars just in case I ran into fellow chompers. Oh, how they would love me! Free cigars, and in such good taste! But not too good taste: Chastened after my recent Rocky-relinquishing incident, I made sure to pack only cigars I had extras of, and wasn't emotionally attached to (no Rockys, no Gurkhas). And in "small" robusto sizes, to minimize any time constraints. After all, what's a 40-minute smoke in the great cosmic scope of things? A flash, a trifle. The time would pass in an instant. And so the foolish delude themselves.

The evening progressed with no cigar smokers in sight - only a few cigarette fiends, hot-boxing it outside the reception hall. Finally at about 10:30, after dancing herself into an exhausted frenzy, my wife made the inevitable request: Cigar?

A warning went off in the back of my brain: Waste alert! Waste alert! Abort now!

"Yes," I said reluctantly. "But do do we really have time--"

"Oh, stop fretting. Let's just smoke what we can. Come on."

"But..." Protest was futile. I was swept along in the current called Sally.

I pulled out a Sancho Panza Valiente (i.e. robusto), something I'd been wanting to try for a while. Lately during strolls in my neighborhood I had come across two Sancho Panzas, mysteriously split open and abandoned on the street, about half a mile from each other. Then a Sancho had arrived in a value pack from Famous Cigars. The universe seemed to be telling me to try this cigar.

And so I lit it up. For a relatively cheap cigar (you can buy a box of these online for about 42 bucks) it tasted pretty good. Natural wrapper, not too heavy or ashy. I was hoping for a little sweetness, hot off the heels of my Rafael Gonzalez experience the night before, but none appeared. Instead there was straight natural flavor, strong, pleasant and self-assured.

Each time I passed it to Sally, she chowed down like the world was going to end, chewing it to a fray and huffing five or six chugs at a time. Needless to say, between the two of us, this thing was soon burning as hot as a stunt car in a 1970s Burt Reynolds flick. Nonetheless, it started opening up nicely after the first inch. Not bad at all. Nice fullness, with a touch of silk or cream. I tried to keep it away from Sally while engaging her in insightful, emotionally intelligent conversation. This only worked for so long.

"Finish up," she said after a few minutes. "We don't want to keep everybody waiting too long."

We hadn't even gotten to the halfway point. I sensed that this cigar was going to get better, might even become the "best cigar for the price" that I had ever smoked. But now I'd never know. I thought of saving it for later, and tried to cut it below the ash with my guillotine. But the cutter was too dull, and the cigar too soft. It scrunched up in the middle, mortally wounded. After a few final, poignant puffs, I lay poor Sancho in the gutter, leaving him to burn to a lonely death as the wedding reception partied on.

Sancho, I done you wrong. Maybe someday I'll find the right time and place to give you the fighting chance you deserve.