A lot of bizarre things happen when you work in retail. Take this cigarette I found on James And The Giant Peach. Is this an anonymous donation from a kind donor that thinks I look like a dude that needs a cigarette? I like to think so and I should probably leave it at that, but…

I say we dive deep into this because I close the shop in an hour and writing for the next 40 minutes feels far more productive than watching Part 3 of Shane Dawson’s “The Beautiful World Of Jeffree Star” series. How crazy is this? The episode was released 5 hours ago and is #1 trending on YouTube and has been trending on Twitter for 5 hours, but I digress. Let’s get back to cigarettes and children’s books because those two things really belong together.

So, the cigarette left behind was probably not an anonymous donation. One theory I’ve tossed around is that this person was either annoyed or offended or both that our copy of James And The Giant Peach is the peach scented edition. That’s right, this book literally smells like a peach. It’s amazing. Come in and give it a good sniff next time you’re in town. The theory is that this person was so disgusted with the idea of a peach scented book that they set out to sabotage it. Their plan was that the scent of the cigarette would overpower the delicious scent of the peach and who knows, maybe this person works for Big Tobacco as a recruiting scout and their whole objective is to get kids addicted to cigarettes. And what better way to do so than by having tobacco scented children’s books? This is actually starting to sound like a Shane Dawson conspiracy video. Anyway, like I said, this is just a theory. Unfortunately, the sad truth is this. You know those people you meet and as soon as they are out of sight you make a mad dash to the nearest hand sanitizer or sink to wash you hands? You didn’t even shake their hand, but the mere presence of them makes you fill covered in germs. Yeah, it was one of those people. This person was also talking to themself while meandering through my shop. I don’t like to throw around the word schizophrenia, but…

Anyway, based on what I could gather from this person they were probably extremely bummed out when they realized later that night that the last cigarette they thought they had actually did not exist. When you think about it, that’s just not a good state of mind for a person that suffers from schizophrenia. Then again, I suppose that’s exactly what schizophrenia is. Right? Now I can’t even keep up with what’s happening in this story. Good thing I now have this cigarette to smoke so it will calm my nerves.

The end.

* * * * * *

Alternate Ending:

Great…I can’t find the cigarette now. Did I ever have it? Did it actually exist? Of course it did, it’s in the photo. Maybe I already smoked it and it was more than a cigarette. You know, like it was laced with something. What’s happening? Am I the crazy one? I knew I should have just watched the Shane Dawson video instead of being “productive”.

The end.

* * * * * *

Ok, seriously. This post could have easily just been the photo and a simple caption like, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Or something like that.

This is where I would normally add some fun links to more of my stuff, but after this post I’m sure you’ve had enough of me.

Until tomorrow!
– Jeff

PS. I don’t smoke and if I did I certainly would not smoke a random cigarette that a complete stranger left behind.