Here I sat, at the head of table among an executive of aspiring male newspaper journalists. Another Friday night at the pub. How we got onto the subject of pipes and cigars, I do not know, but I think it all started with the Scot. Or should I say Scotch.Recalling my inaugural (and only) swig of a scotch-moistened cigar, I described in detail the decadent experience to the dumb-founded men at my table.
"Women shouldn't smoke cigars," they argued.
"You ladies want it all, the cigars and the civalry. The jobs and the kids."
"And I love the smell of an old man's tobacco pipe," I add.
The lot of them cringe, their stubbled chins folding into their Adam's Apples in utter disgust.
I don't take these sorts of conversations to heart. I am no feminist - apart from those moments spent jamming to Tori Amos - but I do appreciate the door being held open, the tab being picked up, and the the freedom of suffrage all at once. What can I say, it's a woman's world. And after centuries of oppression, the men owe it to us. Egad.
I'm about to make an argument for this.
But Dave claims to be a gentleman, mentions Germaine Greer, and I soften.
God damn those hormones.
