I like cigars.  Which is surprising given how much I despise cigarettes – I’ve never even had one in my mouth.  My dad was a smoker, and I always found the habit dirty, smelly, and unappealing – I was so thankful when he finally quit.  But cigars are different somehow.  They smell good, or at least not as bad.  You don’t inhale in your lungs, so it is a very different experience.  But I fully admit that cigar smoking for me is an image thing.  I like pipes too, because holding one and performing the pipe rituals makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes, or a crusty east-coast professor.  But I like cigars more, because the cigar image is even more appealing.  A big stogy in one hand, a glass of whiskey in the other, I imagine myself celebrating the big deal I just closed, or the baby just born.  I got started smoking cigars in college, where my roommates and I made a tradition of lighting cigars when the last of us finished their last final each semester.  A cigar is a reward, a celebration.

I smoked a cigar very occasionally for years, but it was never a habit.  Then I went on vacation in Mexico and discovered a whole new world – the Cuban cigar.  It was amazing!  Cigars went from something that made me feel cool, to something that tasted great.  (Certainly, the Cubans made me feel even cooler.)  Romeo y Julieta.  Cohiba.  Punch.  The Punch cigar is so strong I got drunk smoking it.  But my all-time favorite is Montecristo No. 2.

Of course, these cigars are not easy to get, since they cannot legally be imported into the United States.  The reason for this is complicated, and after asking several people who should know I have never been able to receive a coherent explanation.

Not long after my Mexican vacation I began traveling overseas for work on a regular basis.  And since every civilized country on the planet allows the legal purchase of Cuban cigars, and every country on the planet that is not the United States is civilized, I began smuggling Cuban cigars.  I brought a few home for myself, and sometimes for friends, on almost every overseas trip, several times a year. At first I followed the advice of veteran smugglers.  I took off the rings and all other incriminating evidence and mailed them to myself, bringing just the unmarked cigars in my baggage. Sometimes I was lazy and just threw away the rings.  After many years I grew both more confident and more lazy and just packed the Cubans intact in my suitcase without much thought.

One time I was flying back from somewhere in Asia, coming through San Francisco.  I pass though passport control and start towards customs, going straight to the Nothing to Declare lane.  As I walk through, a Customs agent puts his hand on my shoulder.  He was one of those big, burly types, the kind that considers physical intimidation an important part of their job.  He says “You, follow me.”  A short distance away I set my rollaboard on a table as the agent puts on rubber gloves.  “Do you have anything in the bag you want to tell me about?” he asks.  “No sir, nothing.  Just some dirty laundry.”  He opens the bag and begins to search with extreme meticulousness. He investigates every sock and shirt, shorts and shaving kit.  He carefully rubs his hands along the linings and seams and every square inch of the bag.  While I watch I am thinking about nothing but Cuban cigars.  How much I like them, how many times I had brought them through customs, and how I would not at all enjoy being caught smuggling some into the country.  The whole process is taking 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and during that entire time I am not angry or impatient; in fact, I am smiling while he feels up my dirty underwear, because for once, I came home without a single Cuban.

When there was not a bit of that bag that he had not carefully inspected, the agent pauses and looks thoughtfully at my bag for few more seconds.  And then he starts up again, searching even more carefully than his first round.  And then, when he is half through the second search, another agent walks up to him and says, “Not him (pointing at me), him (pointing across the room)!”  “Oh.”  The agent looks at me – “You can go.” 

That was many years ago.  I still smuggle Cubans into the US occasionally, but not as frequently as in my younger, more care-free days.  I still don’t understand why I can’t buy them in the U.S.  And I am still thankful for that lucky day in San Francisco, when it was “him” and not me.