With a cup of hot cider, I sit down to write to you after an imposed break on myself. The sweetly soft 1970s groove of Bread fills the air as my fingers do the dance of my usual nonsense over the keyboard. But something is missing.

Ah yes, my cigar.

Along with smoking my pipefull of the burly mix of gold Cavendish, I have discovered the joys of a finely hand-rolled cigar. I'm a firm believer that a man needs a vice, and I've had to settle for my pipe and cigar smoking, only because my wife won't let me pursue the manly art of Internet porn.

I no longer drink anything stronger than the above mentioned hot cider, only because when I did drink anything stronger, I was a walking advertisement for Depends.

So I reach for the lid of my humidor. After opening it, I select a fine dark Maduro named after some guy who quite possibly could have started a banana republic revolution for all I know.

I prefer Columbian tobaccos, very likely labored over by the same men who destroyed my college career when they worked for a different cartel -- I mean company. The one question I get from friends whose wives won't let them smoke cigars is if I've ever had a Cuban. Hey, one vice at a time. I'm still trying to hook up with an Asian woman.

I'm inappropriately teasing because it was too good a line to pass up -- similar to when a former employer told me walk this way. "If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the talcum powder," I replied. The key words

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in those two sentences are "former employer."

Cuban cigars are illegal in the United States. So my cigar obsession must stay in Central and South America, as I pray that the Obama administration will not only convert our schoolchildren to socialism but also open up diplomatic relations with Cuba. Especially since Castro is a doddering old fool, much different than when he was a doddering young fool.

Now, a day's smoking of any kind is not a popular vice with the everyday folks who keep a close watch on those of us who have rich, full lives. "You're killing me with that secondhand smoke!" they cry. I can only tell those people to get the hell away from me then. I'm already regulated to smoking outside everywhere except my home. And there I wear the pants in the family (which I desperately needed since I was on my knees begging my wife to let me smoke in the house).

If you don't want to smell my cigar or pipe smoke, that's fine. Just shut up, and move away from me. Don't give me those stink-eye looks because they mean nothing to me. I got those looks from my father since I was born, so coming from you it's a meaningless facial expression, much like your opinion.

Don't write righteous letters of complaint to the editor of your local newspaper because, like me, the other smokers of the world don't care. We have the right to smoke in the open air, and trust me, we're hoping you take the hint and get away from us.

We've acknowledged the risks that come with pipe and cigar smoking, choosing fine tobacco, and cool tools like the guillotine cigar cutter that hangs from my key chain. It hangs there dormant until the time comes to cut the tip off of a fat Don Lugo corona -- or my mother-in- law's pinky if she doesn't knock off her complaining about how my wife could have done better.

Yes, I am now Cigar Johnnie, enjoying the finer things in life because I'm a grown man, with a son in college. Fully capable of enjoying the manly blue haze of a $5 cigar that my wife thinks cost $1.50. You can find cigars that cost that much -- brand names that our grandfathers were cursed to smoke, like White Owls, Phillies, and Dutch Masters, all tasting as if you rolled some kids old gym socks and lit the end. No sir, not Cigar Johnnie.

I pledge my allegiance to the Central American farmers, who pay small children a pittance to harvest their crop. I salute my brothers with funny names who, like artists, roll cigars by hand -- craftsmen, forced to work into their 80s due to the poor conditions of their native lands.

Viva Arturo Fuentes and other real men who smoke cigars while listening to cheesy, girlie pop songs from an easier time of life.

Cigar Johnnie Carrier of North Adams is a freelance writer who just burnt his damn finger trying to enjoy the last bit of his Maduro. There was an easier way to do this when he was in college, but for some reason he can't remember what it was.