Last night, on a late-evening 71, I sat next to a man who was really into cigars. He was carrying a handful, which he had apparently just purchased at a nearby smoke shop.

“They’re rejects,” he told me. “Maybe they’re rolled too tight or something. They normally sell for 15 bucks* a piece.”

Of course, that prompted me to ask about the qualities of a cigar that costs the equivalent of eight peak-hour bus rides (not including transfers) which prompted him to explain about fine tobacco, and timing, and hand-rolling. It was quite an education.

Somewhere in the course of the conversation (as I am wont to do), I mentioned Bus Nerd. The cigar aficionado, who was definitely my elder, but not by more than a decade (decade and a half, tops), raised his eyebrows.

“You’re old enough to have a husband?” he asked.**

Were it not for said husband and my own unwillingness to commit a bus foul (oh yeah, and those cigars), I would have kissed the man.

* Apparently, $15 is nothing. They can (and do!) go much higher, and (as with everything else expensive) there are people who actually buy them.
** And how! Perhaps it was my neon-green 12th Man gloves (thanks, Luke!) that cast a youthful pall–er, I mean glow.