Just a little write-up on one of the stupid things we all did as children (right?).

Night was the best when I was young. I recall 3:00 AM as being the sweet, sweet hour when my father’s brain raised the white flag, finally surrendering to the army of ethyl alcohol that had begun its march on his centers of consciousness several hours before.

The moment this happened, I went to a paper sack that was kept, folded up, in one of our utility drawers in the kitchen. Inside were hundreds of books of matches, and inside of each were about twenty matches. There were, then, perhaps as many as six-thousand virgin matches waiting for me to introduce them to their one and only purpose in this universe (unless you count the purpose of creating tough math problems, but give me a break).

It always began innocently, or at least as innocently as something can be when it involves children and fire. I didn’t have any grand Napoleonesque schemes of destruction or domestic attack, but things being what they were (that is: a six year old alone at 3:00 AM with enough matches to burn down the Olympic National Forest), sensibility eventually gave way to the pleasure of unbridled juvenile delinquency.

I rolled myself cigars. They weren’t real cigars, mind you, but they were built well enough for their purpose. To make a cigar of my invention, you need the following materials:

1. Newspaper (black and white – not color (What are you? Crazy?))

2. Mint leaves from the garden

3. No sense of "right" or "wrong"

4. Stupidity

To begin, you must lay one sheet of newspaper flat on a table, preferably with the lingerie ads facing upward so that you have something interesting to look at while you work. A handful of mint leaves should then be wadded together, rather thickly, in something which approximates the shape of a tube. I realize that this is difficult, but it can be done with enough squeezing.

Next, cut away a quarter of the newspaper sheet, but try to leave as many lingerie ads as possible intact. Take this quarter page of newsprint and lay your mint along the side of the paper – not, as you might expect, up the middle. The middle never works. You don’t even want to bother with it. If it weren’t for the fact that the middle is what makes it possible for something to have sides at all, I’d have suggested getting rid of the thing altogether, but things are what they are, and we are at the paper’s mercy, as well as the universal rule that, to have sides, a middle is a must.

Next, while holding down with some pressure on the mint at either end of the length of the paper, begin rolling. Roll until you have a tight cigar. Pay attention to some of the neatness as well – you really want this thing to roll straightly and evenly. The last thing you want (trust me) is a newspaper cigar with a suggestively conical shape to one end. It’s embarrassing if you’re at a party, and just kind of pathetic if you’re all alone.

The final step is to lick the last little bit of loose newspaper so that it will stick to itself and remain shut – you don’t want your cigar to unravel while you’re smoking it. Nothing will take all the sophistication out of your eloquent speech on the finer points of French Symbolist poetry like a homemade newspaper cigar unraveling in your very hand to the horror of the literati who have made it to your fashionable little party.

Assuming, then, that you’ve followed the directions up to this point, you should have a reasonable approximation of the masterpieces I used to assemble under a hanging light in the dining room on Saturday nights.

Now comes your reward.

Remember those matches? Go grab yourself a book, rest one end of the newspaper cigar between your connoisseur’s lips, bring a match into its lit state, apply it to the cigar end that is not currently in your mouth, inhale, and gag repeatedly for the next thirty seconds on all the dioxins you’re sucking into your lungs.

That black, noxious, probably liver-dissolving smoke is perfectly normal, and no good reason to quit smoking now.

At this point, you will learn very quickly if you made your cigar well or not.

If you made your cigar well, then it should be burning regularly and slowly, emitting clouds of ash and smoke of the sort that would cause your car to fail its emissions test in the state of California. It should feel solid, as though it won’t have any problem keeping you company for the next twenty minutes, and the smoke should be thick, as though it won’t have any problem keeping you unconscious for the next twenty minutes.

Just sit back, inhale the diesel-like aroma, think about all the money you saved by making your cigar instead of buying one, all the joy given unto you by the creative process, and the fact that you’re probably going to die much sooner than planned, and so won’t have the burden of spending much more time on this stinking rock.

If, on the other hand, you made your cigar poorly, three things should be up in flames right now:

1. The cigar itself

2. Your hair

3. The table where you made your cigar

I have learned from the rare accident that you should try to put the hair fire out first, as failure to do so could lead to the inadvertent ignition of any low-flying birds which might be in your living room. There’s also the potential for danger to the rest of your head to consider, if you’re into that kind of thing.

The cigar should, by now, most definitely be burning and crackling like a bowl of Rice Krispies left too long in the microwave. You can’t save your baby now, and you sure as hell shouldn’t try. The problem is that you picked the leaves and then probably dried them even though my directions do not specify anywhere that you should have done this. You’re an idiot.

The table that is currently on fire can, and should, be considered "Idiot Tax;" the price you’re paying for having been so bloody sloppy with the fabrication of what is, really, a bit of smoking material so simple that a six year old could (and often did) assemble it, but which you managed to completely screw up.

This is, of course, how it usually ends: You’ve hardly had a chance to take a drag, the remaining three lashes of your eyebrows are now smoldering, the rest having gone to eyebrow heaven several minutes ago, and you’ve lost all your hot lingerie ads in the fire that’s currently consuming the dining table.

My father, bless his little heart, never found this very entertaining. In fact, if I recall correctly, each time this happened, he stumbled out of his bedroom, still under the influence of the Devil’s own spit, stopped for a moment in the flickering, orange-yellow glow of the fire eating his dining room table alive, and mentioned that I had obviously been a bad boy and that I wouldn’t get an allowance that week. Then he would suggest that, well, since I started the fire and all, I should probably be the one to put it out.

Then he would turn around and head back to his bedroom.

And I wasn’t too upset, as nobody needs an allowance to pull matches out of a utility drawer on Saturday night.