"Steven Popkes - The Great Caruso" - читать интересную книгу автора (Popkes Steven)

way back when she was thirteen and living in Portales. And, just like when she was thirteen, after a
minute or two she turned green and threw up. Oh, well, she thought philosophically. You pay for your
pleasures.

In no time at all she was back up to a couple of packs a day.

Lenny, of course, was appalled.

He came over to her house and tried to talk over the music. There was always music in Norma's house:
blues, country, classical, rock. If she could sing it, she had it on. Not that Norma could sing. Her voice
had been described as having all the subtlety and color of a downtown bus at rush hour. Norma didn't
care.

First Lenny tried desperately to talk her out of it. тАЬCome on, Ma,тАЭ he pleaded. тАЬIt's been years. You're
over seventy. Don't throw it away now.тАЭ Then, he got belligerent and refused to let her come over to his
house to see her grandkids. That lasted a week. They lived down the street in the same sort of four-room
bungalow she did. If she couldn't go over there, they came over here. Once pleading and threats didn't
work, he tried covert operations. He broke into her house after duty and threw away every pack of
cigarettes he could find.

This last trick might have worked. Cigarettes were eleven dollars a pack now and she was still at the
same job after thirty years. What she needed was a way to smoke cigarettes without having them in the
house. Or, better, cigarettes cheap enough she could afford to lose a few packs a month as the cost of
doing business.

The Internet, she discovered, holds the answer to all things.

Reginald Cigarettes, a tiny company based in the Sandwich Islands (which used to be Hawaii until they
seceded) sold cigarettes by direct mail. This had many advantages. First, she gave them the address of a
packing services company nearbyтАФthat way Lenny couldn't take them out of the mailbox before she
could get to them. Second, they were cheaper since they were being sold from another country (no
taxes!). Third, they were also artificial. When she was finally found out and cornered, she could use the
site's propaganda about how much better they were than real cigarettes.

Not that Norma cared. She figured she could empty a few packs of Reginalds and stuff them with
Marlboros.

But when the Reginalds came, she found she liked them. True, they didn't taste quite as good as
Marlboros. But the tingle was better and, as had to happen eventually, when Lenny found out about them
and she showed him the packтАФ

"See?тАЭ she cried shrilly. тАЬSee? They're better for me."

"Ma,тАЭ protested Lenny. He looked at the pack. тАЬThey still got tobacco in them."

"But look at the numbers on the side. They're way better than Marlboros."

Lenny sighed. By that, Norma knew she had won.

She had her cigarettes. All was right with the world.