The Bong Show

I sell many, many things in my shop. Along with Indian tapestries, Japanese incense, glass jewelry and Obama stickers are several cases of tobacco accessories. I have always blamed this on my old friend Eric, who back in 1987 talked me into displaying three deer antler pipes that he made in between downing twelve-packs of PBR and smoking packs of More menthol cigarettes in the back of that sharecropper shack he was staying at off Highway 301. I agreed to consign them, and shoved over a few vintage rhinestone brooches in the case to make room for them.

They sold.

Although I didn't care for smoking in any form, I kind of liked selling pipes. The tobacco paraphernalia clientele is generally a grateful one, and not shy about shelling out the bucks for a myriad of smoking devices. A couple of decades later, I sell vaporizers, water pipes, handpipes ranging from corn cob to color-changing glass, bubblers, and traditional meerschaums. I still don't smoke, which means that I spend a lot of time listening to people describe the pros of cons of carburators and the widths and lengths necessary to draw from an upright sherlock, and whether a Gravitron is practical for solo use. There's a thesis waiting to be written regarding the fine art of smoking, I'm sure of it.

So - in spite of the fact that a certain 1994 Supreme Court decision rendered the selling of a thing called a "bong" a felony (so of course none of us in the business sell anything named the "B" word, we're just selling tobacco waterpipes) - I attended an accessories show in Las Vegas this week which my daughter and I nicknamed The Bong Show. We spent several hours staring breathlessly at thousands of pipes. While others at the show were obviously considering their personal smoking possibilities, I was one of those parties whose cartoon balloon floating above my head would have instead focused on this subject: Can I Triple My Money On This One? Would My Shop Move A Hundred Of These By New Years?

Besides, there were way too many Bong Babes in there. The average thirty year old dude who owns a store would salivate over dozens of women clad in fishnets and Daisy Dukes and black brassieres, but middle-aged mamas such as myself - there were perhaps another one or two women who made buying decisions in addition to me - were just angry that there was not a single Scantily Clad Man.

I mean, I feel good about selling an item which so obviously skirts the legal line of respectability. Pipe-selling makes me feel vaguely bad ass, although I realize that this is just an illusion (but it's a pretty good illusion when you're pushing fifty, as I am). It's a nice business, nice folks, nice products, and nothing that Wal-Mart can ever take away from me. Pipes have helped put my daughter through college and paid two mortgages. But - just like when I ran the biggest used CD and indie music business in a college town back in the nineties, it's a man's world. And nothing reminds me of this fact so much as being at a trade show where all the girls wear push-up bras and stilletos, while the men handle all the money.

All of this just inspires me to try harder. Pipes aren't really a gender issue, anyway, right?

BONGBONGBONGBONGBONGBONGBONGBONG...

NTD