L.S./M.F.T.Loose straps mean floppy tits

Loyalty. When asked of pet owners why they prefer dogs over cats, loyalty is often mentioned. Dogs are loyal, cats are manipulative. Cats require your love only as it suits them & also only to tease you, to give you just enough pet-owner-fulfillment that you keep feeding them. Dogs on the other hand are mostly stupid, requiring not only your love but also your constant attention that they don’t get hit by cars, chew on furniture, piss on neighbour’s lawns, etcetera. & for these services rendered, dogs will be loyal. To a fault.

I know people who will only wear black clothing. I know people who will drink only cheap beer. I know people who won’t listen to music on the radio because it’s on the radio. I know people who got their license taken away from them for five years because they had to drive everywhere, to the corner store, to the park, but mostly because they always had to drive to the bar & also always had to drive back & therefore got so many driving under the’s that they lost their license for five years & when they finally got it back & finally got that car which had been parked under a pine tree for so many mass transit laden years that they had actually become well established with many a bus driver & fellow commuter but when they finally got that ol’ car re-insured they swore they’d still take the bus but after all’s said & done they drive to work now every single day. These are examples of loyalty. To a fault.

My big one was Lucky Strike non-filtered cigarettes. As a quick fingered child of ten & four years I fell in love with Luckies because of their packaging. That cute little bullseye & nothing more. The Great American Tobacco Company’s marketing gurus knew what they were doing way back when. For awhile it was just a friendly relationship but then I got a mohawk & an attitude & my fate was sealed. For six years I would smoke nothing but Lucky Strikes. I’d get choice friends to smoke them as well, those whom I felt close enough to to share my predilection for these specific little life-killers with.

As all obsessions beyond reason go, we had our particular traditions for these cigarettes which had to be met. There is a depiction of an indian across the top of the package & one must only open the pack behind the indian’s head, he could not face the rupture in the packaging. Due to the discovery that Nazi troops were able to follow american soldiers during world war I by their cigarette butts, one had to smoke the cigarette backwards as it were, so that the Lucky Strike emblem on the cigarette, which gave away the allies to the germans, was incinerated. We continued with this tradition, adamantly stomping out any newcomer’s ill-lit cigarette while vehemently screaming, “the Nazis will find us!” For a few years my friend Paul & I collected the packaging, carefully unwrapping each one, folding it neatly & delicately placing it in a shoe box or between the pages of a book, enough so that when we finally realised our fanaticism, we probably had enough to wallpaper your typical living room.

At the age of twenty-two my economic welfare dropped significantly & I began experimenting with other brands. Also, lingering in the back of my mind was this idea that if I were to ever quit smoking I’d first have to relinquish my obsession with Lucky Strikes. I’m a roll my own kind of guy now but last night at the bar I bought a pack of Luckies & it all came back. The traditions, the carnal knowledge of this pack & these twenty li’l buddies, the feeling of having something else, something that no one else in the bar could touch. I was empowered. I was full again.

It’s sickening.