Purchasing Power

By Tony Martin

Chapter 10

They were sassy triplets varying in age. From day one our supply couldn’t keep up with their demand, and after only a few minutes of touching and feeling, they had us eating out of the seams of their pants. This couldn’t have been the first time they had to use what they had to get what they wanted. But it was truly the first time in my short life that I was being asked to take off the Pamper and be a man.  A call of distress was immediately sent out to our brains to devise a plan that could keep the smoke rings floating at this would-be bunny ranch. But the quantity of tobacco that our allowances and lunch money afforded us just wasn’t going to meet our lustful need to be teased. Before we were even given an opportunity to display our fortitude, the brown blondes of fun had retrieved three paper bags from under the counter of the sink.  The oldest girl was about four years older than us. She hopped on top of the counter and placed the paper bag between her legs.  Then she revealed to us the scam that she and her sisters had successfully executed to supply their daily fix of nicotine.

The oldest girl was about four years older than us. She hopped on top of the counter and placed the paper bag between her legs.

“The three of you will walk to the grocery store up the street called Winn Dixie.  Before entering the store you make sure that the paper bags are tucked away in your pants so that the store employees can’t see them. After entering the store, find a cash register that is closed and walk into the small aisle. If no one is looking, take the paper bags out of your pants and fill them with the cartons of cigarettes that are there on the shelves. After every bag is full, make sure that you exit the store out of the door nearest to the alley.  Make sure that no one is following you, and then walk quickly down the path that leads to the apartment complex. We will be waiting for you to get back.”  She folded the bag solemnly and presented it like a flag.

Things went well for about a week with this routine. Then one day when we had just finished pulling our paper bags out, the store manager approached us and asked what we were planning on doing with the bags. “Nothing,” we replied. But the manager didn’t believe us, so he just told us to leave the store. We never revealed to the girls that we had gotten caught stealing because that would’ve meant the end of our sexual escapades, which had just begun to heat up and bake the oats that we were trying to sow. For about another week we lingered around the girls until our bouts of knocking on their door got longer and longer and the chuckles and sounds of bodies moving to and fro became our cue to leave.  I learned five facts of life during these short episodes of using tobacco to be hip and cool; of using tobacco to use people and ending up a foolish mule:

1. Power comes to those who splurge away their riches.
2. Crime may pay for a couple of days.
3. What comes around goes around. So when you use people, look forward to being used in the near future.
4. When you run out of money, you’re sure to lose your honey.
5. And the fifth and final fact is never think you have too much wit to be tricked.