James says I have to post a blog, so here goes... I've been 18 for two days now and yesterday when i got carded at the clove shop the guy commented, "Whoa, April 23rd, huh?" Four-fifty a box. Cha-ching. I just smiled. So here I am sitting at my computer smoking legally purchased sampoernas and trying to mellow out and read some Vonnegut. The snakepit I used to buy them at charged me 6 bucks a goddam box. Boy was that place a snakepit. Sometimes the silly Indonesian guy that owns the place would ask you for your ID just so the camera would record him "checking IDs" for the next time the bacon squad cracked down on the place. Then he'd go ahead and sell you the loot. You could be 12 years old and he'd sell to you for chrissakes, as long as you had a school ID or a Subway card or the potty pass some teacher wrote you at school earlier that day to flash in front of the goddam camera. He's been busted about 5 times (as far as I know) for selling coffin nails to the neighborhood kids, but he doesn't really have choice anymore if he wants to stay in business. They built up a Texaco right in front of the strip of shops that his store is in. 6 bucks a goddam box to any minor who wants em. Damn, what a snakepit. ***Natalie***