First of all, a delayed Cherry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Safe Solstice to all. May your days be merry and bright. Now, let’s jump back a couple of weeks.
Sunday morning on December 2nd. It was a beautiful day; 70 degrees outside. As I put on a short sleeve shirt, I temporarily thought about global warming, but decided just to enjoy the side effects in my Led Zeppelin shirt.
Around noon, I strolled into The Scottish Arms, a pub where I worked for four years and my fiancé, Lauren, still works as a hostess. Kissing her on the cheek, I settled into a corner booth with an Irish Coffee and papers to grade.
*thud* Lauren drops a local magazine in front of me, open to a specific page with the title “Holiday Gift Guide”. I sighed as I waited for her to point out the item that had caught her eye and prepared for mental calculations of how much of my holiday budget I currently had remaining.
Despite my initial cynicism, my eyes fell on something beautiful, though I did not fully appreciate it at first: a picture of six Vauen pipes from a local pipe shop.
I don’t know if it was because I was too focused on all of the grading I had to do or if I was simply groggy from the previous evening, but my first reaction was simply to say: “Yeah, those are pretty good pipes.”
Lauren looked at me with surprise and I stared back at her with what I am sure must have seemed complete idiocy.
“But it’s a pipe advertisement in a magazine.”
She was right. The beauty of this advertisement was not the brand of pipes being advertised, but the fact that pipes were being mentioned at all. I had not seen something like that outside of specialty shops, hipster-style “ironic” stores, and old, faded catalogues.
Feel free to read my complete analysis over at Quality Briar, a wonderful website where my blog is now hosted! The website is listed here: Pipe School.
