Clouds of Horror

For years I lived under the impression that Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to England. The story went that he was in the colony of Virginia around 1586, and returned home with a shipload of leaves. Being a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, she indulged his interest in burning the dried plant, and so the first nicotine delivery system found royal approval.

The truth is that Jean Nicot, a Frenchman, brought tobacco from the New World to Europe, and from there it was introduced to England. From Monsieur Nicot's name we have nicotine, and another fabulation is replaced by the truth. Sadly we all still live in a propaganda cloud.

Fortunately, a weekend customer didn't envelope me in a cloud of tobacco smoke. Instead, as I drove the town car, he made me queasy in that other way nicotine addicts have, which is to chew that shit. As if it isn't disgusting enough to hook great piles of fermented plant litter into your jaw, there is yet more horror; they spit.

You can tell the dippers from the used plastic orange juice containers they carry around. Like infants unable to wean themselves from mother's breast, these guys cannot be without their fix, meaning that the rest of us have to put up with the gallons of juice they produce. I am always hopeful they dispose of that gunk carefully, but we all know that a lot of it ends up in the soles of our shoes.

For an hour he sat and chewed, and sat and spat, and sat and chewed. All the way to Tampa airport.

If one day you read about a limousine driver 'Going Limo' on the side of I-275, spare a thought for me. I just couldn't take another expectoration.