Rant: Cigar Bums

[OLS]

Originally Posted by rizzle

It's almost as if he has just come to expect me to furnish him with a smoke for the night whenever he happens to be around.

I have a guy like that at work. He DID buy a few old humidors from me, and as long as he had room,
he'd buy a box of sale cigars off me, but one day he just shut off the tap. No money, just moochy looks
everytime I'd get an order in. So the Habano faucet got turned off and the JR faucet got turned on.
The best way to get that kind of person is just to completely ignore the fact that they probably want
a cigar, SHOW em your latest haul and put them in a drawer for later. They will think, "Man, what happened??
I should be getting a few of those and I am not." I wonder what's going on? It doesn't cure a mooch, but it
trains them down a bit with some good old intermittent reinforcement.

[massphatness]

Originally Posted by poker

I personally have given away literally hundreds and hundreds of cigars over the last 20 years, many of which are rare/vintage havanas to friends, family, and to many folks I never met before or met for the first time. Sometimes the cigar I give someone is my last of that particular cigar I may ever see again.

Having received a Cohiba Reserva Esplendidos from this man when I was just getting my feet wet on Club Stogie, I can tell you he speaks the truth. It was a phenomenal example of what this brotherhood is about and one that I have tried to emulate, abeit poorly, over the years.

[wayner123]

Originally Posted by OLS

I have a guy like that at work. He DID buy a few old humidors from me, and as long as he had room,
he'd buy a box of sale cigars off me, but one day he just shut off the tap. No money, just moochy looks
everytime I'd get an order in. So the Habano faucet got turned off and the JR faucet got turned on.
The best way to get that kind of person is just to completely ignore the fact that they probably want
a cigar, SHOW em your latest haul and put them in a drawer for later. They will think, "Man, what happened??
I should be getting a few of those and I am not." I wonder what's going on? It doesn't cure a mooch, but it
trains them down a bit with some good old intermittent reinforcement.

LOL, what does a "moochy look" look like?

[icehog3]

Originally Posted by wayner123

LOL, what does a "moochy look" look like?

Like PuroBrat.

Originally Posted by icehog3

Like PuroBrat.

Holy sh*t....haven't heard that name in a while...

I was thinking more along the lines of "GameLover"....

[Whipper Snapper]

Originally Posted by OLS

You might have been the first mooching noob, and I mean that in the most respectful way.
I can remember when you popped in and jumped in with both feet. Even though the other place
was not as completely, overwhelmingly generous as THIS place is, I think you had no idea that people
were going to hit you the way they did. You were just curious and broke, as I recall. I did not send
anything to you, but I remember it well. Your avatar made me chuckle everytime I saw it.
I think it all started with a couple "I never had one of those." 'es. Talk about the birthplace of the bomb.

I may be mis-remembering the facts, but I remember the time and place and the shavetail young whipper-
snapper. I think people could diffrentiate you from a garden-variety mooch, so you were OK.

After reading all of this, I hope the term "mooching-noob" isn't synonymous with "mooch" or "purobrat". Thankfully, I had the opportunity to bomb some of the farts responsible for a majority of the mayhem (Cough *Smitty/Paulmac* cough). One things for certain- I had absolutely NO IDEA I'd get pummeled the way I did back at the other place.

Motheman, Icehog, Smitty, Frank and Anita (Floydp), IHT (now curly cut) and Coppertop. I'm sure there were others whom I've forgotten, and for that I'm sorry. They sure did beat the snot out of me though.

I think the worst of it all was the constant torment I received from Paulmac and Smitty via aim/pm's. The two of them insisted that there would be a time where impending doom would rain down upon my head. Apparently they had arranged some mass bombing that would've included half the forum or something. Thankfully, that never took place. I don't deserve a carpet bombing.

Bottom line is, I hope a few years down the road, I'm able to return the favor to someone as ignorant as I was.

[South Shield]

Wow, there is some very generous Brothers of the Leaf on this forum and to that I say, YOU ARE MOOCH ENABLERS! Stop it! The less you give the more you have.

Now will someone go to Walmart for me and pick up some Kitty Litter, I have to keep my humidor going until my sticks get to 3 years old and I have to destroy them in front of the VA.

[replicant_argent]

Everypipedotcom

[DivineRight]

I think people are misinterpreting the difference between a "mooch" and a someone who is new to the cigar scene. Over the years, I have met a lot of friends of friends who are interested in cigars and almost all of them never have their own cigars. I have no problem gifting them with one of my tasty habanos but I always try to judge what a good cigar for them would be depending on their experiences.

I've found that giving someone a strong cigar like a Partagas SD4 or one of my Bolivar PC's always seems to wrong move. Over the years, I have found certain cigars to be great introductory cigars. These are the ones that I tend to give to others to smoke but they are also cigars that I enjoy myself. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing someone discover the enjoyment of a cigar before your eyes.

I also have a collection of cigars that I reserve for people who in my opinion have no inclination to ever become a cigar lover, so basically "posers". Over time, through box passes and friends returning from vacations, I've been gifted with fakes and strange cigars (some smelling like aftershave, others just looking too rough to smoke). I've handed these cigars over and giggled while doing it. I know its messed up, my dark humor sometimes takes over but in my defense I reserve these only for the true mooches. In my circle of friends, we've kicked out actual mooches-those who are cheap in every aspect of the definition and take advantage of the generosity of the group. They are the ones who you go out to dinner with and they seem to always forget their wallet or not have any cash on them that day. They are the same people who go to a BBQ's empty handed when everyone else brought something, they show up to parties and drink everyone else's booze because they didn't have time to pick something up, they are the ones who show up to cigar meets empty handed every time and they are typically the ones who talk the big talk with nothing to show for it. I think we can all agree that nobody wants to be around people like this, let alone gift them with our precious cigars.

[glassjapan]

It's not the fact that someone is an experienced smoker. And it's not the fact that they might finish the cigar or only smoke an inch. You give because you want to give. You give the best you have, because you like to give. The rest is just score keeping...

[dvickery]

Originally Posted by DivineRight

There is nothing more satisfying than seeing someone discover the enjoyment of a cigar before your eyes.

some smelling like aftershave, others just looking too rough to smoke

chap

first...so nice to see you here...5 posts in a year and i know you have lots more you could add to this forum. too much wisdom and cigar knowledge to be so unspoken about it all.

paragraph#1...logan smoking his first cigar...he enjoyed but maybe too many mojitos to remember.it was a glassy eyed look of satisfaction tho.

paragraph#2...i remember the "aftershave" tainted cigars...still chuckle when i think of them...glad we traded the guy for a sack of pucks to vancouver.

Originally Posted by dvickery

yes i watched someone put down one of my beloved santo coronas with but an inch smoked...maybe i should have given him a milder cigar.

yes that was logan too...it appears chap gave him the better cigar as he smoked all of it.

sorry if this post makes little sense to anyone else.
derrek

[Noodles]

Originally Posted by Coach Deg

A friend( a lawyer) had out on the bar OpusX xxx at his wedding. Me and another guy were crying over all these idiots that took the cigars didn't know how to cut them, took a few puffs and left them in the ashtray to die!!!

They are idiots for basically not sharing the same hobby as you do?

[hscmit]

Originally Posted by bonggoy

They are idiots for basically not sharing the same hobby as you do?

no I would assume that he (the op) lamented the waste of dozens of cigars that others would have enjoyed

[Noodles]

Originally Posted by hscmit

no I would assume that he (the op) lamented the waste of dozens of cigars that others would have enjoyed

That's what exactly I am referring to. He called them idiots for not understanding the proper etiquette of cigar smoking i.e. not knowing how to cut a cigar and you have to finish a cigar.

[hscmit]

waste not a lack of passion

[cmitch]

Originally Posted by pnoon

If I give/gift someone a cigar, it is theirs to do with as they wish.

If it is given with strings attached then it is not really a gift. I would never give someone a cigar if I have to dictate what they do with it or demand that they enjoy it.
Posted via Mobile Device

It is really quite amazing how many different directions and opinions came from this rant. Hmm. I don't think I was attaching strings to anything. My rant was about people I didn't know who thinks they can bum a cigar like they bum a cigarette. That's all.

[cmitch]

Originally Posted by Brian D.

This a funny topic for me to stumble across today. This morning I was at the B&M in downtown Cincinnati. (As you may know, tobacconist shops in Ohio are about the only legal places to smoke indoors nowadays. Anyhow, this sometimes leads to..uh, an interesting mix of non-customers coming in merely to be out of the cold.)

A scruffy guy of the above type comes in and sits down for a few minutes. He was not in anybody's way but the employees were keeping an eye on him, so was I for that matter. He said nothing until he saw that my mostly-smoked cigar was perched in the ashtray. His question was "Are you gonna finish that?". I replied that I indeed would be finishing it. That's when the employees told him that it was time to go.

Several minutes later, after said stogie was done and at the bottom of the ashtray, covered with ashes and no longer lit, same gent popped in long enough to swipe it.

Thankfully this is not a frequent occurence there. This thread does make it seem like some of you might have been much more kindly than I was, maybe you could have given him one of your best ISOM sticks.

Oh, so you've met that kind, too.

[cmitch]

Originally Posted by Gophernut

Reading all of the posts in this thread, I think we have gotten away from what Clayton was trying to accomplish. His question seemed to me to be what to do with folks you don't know well, but are with them due to an aquaintance. In this case, I think it's perfectly okay to not want to part with a 7-10 dollar stick. I do keep good cheap smokes around for someone who doesn't smoke much. If I know you enjoy cigars, you can pick it out of my humi. If I don't know, I'll do it. Most of the time the newbie doesn't know what they want and will just be thankful for the reccomendation.
If I am in a social setting where there may be the opportunity to smoke cigars, I always bring along a couple of cigars that I would NOW consider yard-gars, but when I first started smoking, they were in heavy rotation. I think most people who just want to try something, probably wont enjoy what I am into now anyways. I liked milder cigars when I started, now into the more full flavored varieties.
So it's more about being prepared for me when I go out somewhere. If I know I'll be with family/friends who enjoy cigars, I will bring a couple along to share that I think they'll like, and a couple of my former favs that won't bother me to see floating in a half a glass of beer. Bothers me more about the beer.

Thank you! You deserve an AAA+++ for getting what, surprisingly, so many others have missed.

Originally Posted by Thammy

For me it depends on who. If they are some random then they pay, unless I have been chatting to them for awhile after meeting and think I can make their day. Other then that I usually give some to fellow cigar friends (and pipe tobacco) for something to bond over and talk about, or let some non smoker friends give it a try(though I restrict it to mild ones for the first time). Also if I stroll down whyte ave and decide to stop at my local tobacconist with a friend, smoker or not I will offer to buy them a cigar for their first time. If I am with a friend and they are sitting outside with me for 2 hours, I would rather them enjoy it as well and maybe nab them into the hobby!

I don't like Cigar snobbery though. One time I simply asked a man outside a concert what kind of cigar he was smoking for I did not recognize the band and wanted to make conversation cause I was alone.. He just shook his head, as if assuming I wanted to mooch it. ( which was not the case!)

Btw, the term moochadore made me LOL in Theology class

My friends at the B&M would tell you I am more generous than most with my sticks. I always have extras to pass to those who appreciate. But as I pointed out, these aren't cigarettes and I think that's where the misunderstanding takes place.

[cmitch]

Originally Posted by DivineRight

I think people are misinterpreting the difference between a "mooch" and a someone who is new to the cigar scene. Over the years, I have met a lot of friends of friends who are interested in cigars and almost all of them never have their own cigars. I have no problem gifting them with one of my tasty habanos but I always try to judge what a good cigar for them would be depending on their experiences.

I've found that giving someone a strong cigar like a Partagas SD4 or one of my Bolivar PC's always seems to wrong move. Over the years, I have found certain cigars to be great introductory cigars. These are the ones that I tend to give to others to smoke but they are also cigars that I enjoy myself. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing someone discover the enjoyment of a cigar before your eyes.

I also have a collection of cigars that I reserve for people who in my opinion have no inclination to ever become a cigar lover, so basically "posers". Over time, through box passes and friends returning from vacations, I've been gifted with fakes and strange cigars (some smelling like aftershave, others just looking too rough to smoke). I've handed these cigars over and giggled while doing it. I know its messed up, my dark humor sometimes takes over but in my defense I reserve these only for the true mooches. In my circle of friends, we've kicked out actual mooches-those who are cheap in every aspect of the definition and take advantage of the generosity of the group. They are the ones who you go out to dinner with and they seem to always forget their wallet or not have any cash on them that day. They are the same people who go to a BBQ's empty handed when everyone else brought something, they show up to parties and drink everyone else's booze because they didn't have time to pick something up, they are the ones who show up to cigar meets empty handed every time and they are typically the ones who talk the big talk with nothing to show for it. I think we can all agree that nobody wants to be around people like this, let alone gift them with our precious cigars.

There ya go. Unfortunately, we sometimes end up around moochers and it's not by choice. I've gleaned some good ideas from these posts as well, to combat moochery in the future.

[DocLogic77]

Originally Posted by LasciviousXXX

This man speaks the truth!

The very first time Kelly and I ever met in person he handed me a very rare cigar that I had never tried. Both the gesture and the cigar made a lasting impression that I remember to this day. Generosity, even to those you've never met or might never meet again, can sometimes be the greatest gift.

Agreed. I remember the generosity of a few gentlemen, specifically Klugs when I first entered into this wonderful hobby. I knew nothing, had little to smoke, and little to nothing to offer. It was those generous and social experiences with experienced and giving BOTLs that spurred my love for cigars.