Cigaretticus Brandus Idioticus

by James MacLaren

These bastards are just too fucking precious. Smokers. For those of us who don’t smoke, there’s a whole little world that revolves around goddamned cigarettes. Lots of strange territory in The Land of Cigarettes.

Not least of which is what brand is the sonofabitch smoking.

Cigarettes, in case you didn’t know, come in more damn varieties than you can imagine!

And so, even though you never huffed a weed in your fucking life, you come to learn all the peculiar arcana of cigarette brands.

The shit is unbelievable! There’s more different kinds of smokes out there than there are different garage bands! Zillions of ‘em. And, like garage bands, they come and go. The big tobacco companies are always on the lookout for another Marlboro or Winston to come along and take over half the market, putting all the Lucky Strikes and Old Gold’s out of business.

And it’s not enough that there’s ten thousand different kinds of smokes. Oh no. Each different kind of smoke comes in it’s own bewildering array of types and subtypes.

We’ll take Camels as an example: nonfiltered, lights, wides, menthols, reds, filters, specials, wide lights, menthol lights, red lights box, wide lights king size (the smaller ones, what’s up with that?) soft pack, wide light 100’s (the longer ones) box, wide king soft pack, wide 100’s box, special light king, special light 100 soft pack, menthol king, menthol 100, and on and on it goes. Honestly here, I’m not kidding. All this shit is real, all of it is for just ONE brand, and all of it is something the idiot smoker HAS to have exactly right. Fuck up the tiniest detail of any of this shit, and with a sneering tone the motherfucker across the counter says, “I TOLD you box, not soft pack! What the hell’s wrong with you? Whyn’t’cha clean out your damn ears?”

Oh. Of course. Shouldda cleaned out my damn ears. Why didn’t I think to do that before I came in here? Silly me.

Enter Cigaretticus Brandus Idioticus.

This goof don’t know from ten zillion types of cigarettes. All this motherfucker knows is what HE smokes and to hell with the rest of the world. Which would be alright, I suppose, except for one small detail.

The dumb sonofabitch thinks YOU should know what brand he buys too.

But you don’t.

All you know is that great shoals of idiots smoking various kinds of cigarettes swarm past your counter every day and ask you for this or that particular brand. You turn around, go to The Great Wall Of Cigarettes, and pluck out the variety the dope specified.

End of story, yes?

No.

Brandus Idioticus has taken it into his head that unless you can connect his misshapen face with a particular brand of slow poison, he’s been insulted.

Gravely insulted.

Count on these bastards to cop a major attitude every time you ask them, “What kind?”

Fuses are blown and heated words are emitted.

“Goddamned Vantage menthol light regulars in the fucking soft pack! What the hell’s wrong with you? I come in here every day and buy the same damn thing! Why can’t you just GIVE me the motherfuckers and not give me the third degree about what kind of fucking cigarettes I smoke? Just HAND ‘em to me asshole and let me the hell out of this fucked up store!”

These dopes will NEVER understand that there’s only so much memory available in your brain, and not ALL of it is going to be devoted to cross indexing buttholes with matching brands of cigarettes.

Which, as it turns out, is a secret weapon at your disposal.

Brandus Idioticus don’t know it, but he’s just handed you a little something on a silver platter.

You are now in possession of a surefire method of pissing him off, EVERY TIME.

Clean my ears out? Maybe not, Brandus. Maybe instead I’ll just PUNISH you for being an asshole. Maybe I’ll just decide that I’ll NEVER learn what kinda fucked up cigarette you smoke, you worthless piece of shit.

And so you do.

“What kind?”

Fuck off asshole