I don’t really know where else to post this, so I figured my comrades at Hexbear might appreciate it.
A couple months ago I was coming back home from the weekly Palestine solidarity rally. On my way back home I needed to somehow obtain a $5 bill to tip the grocery delivery guy that weekend, and thought “Hell, I haven’t had a cigar in a while, maybe I’ll pick one up”. There’s a cute little Cuban cigar shop down the road, so I popped in.
The owner is a short Cuban man, and he was rummaging through his cigars doing whatever cigar-store owners do in their down-time. I walk in the door. He looks at me, then looks at my keffiyeh, then back at me, then back at my keffiyeh, and then says “…Palestine?” Not knowing his politics, I reluctantly say “…yes 😬?”
This triggers a 40 minute long discussion, whereupon he goes off on how fucking despicable what’s Israel is doing in Gaza is how they are getting away with mass murder in broad daylight, doing “exactly what the nazis did” etc etc. He had clearly been following what’s been happening and was sickened by it and I got the impression he didn’t have much of an outlet to express his thoughts (as many of us don’t).
I wanted to buy two small cigars (the ones on the right in the photo) and he said that he’d give me a discount, and ended up giving me three free of charge, on the condition that the next time that I was out protesting the genocide in Gaza that I “yell a little louder for him” ✊, to which I of course agreed (there are only two in the photo because I’ve smoked one already) I honestly tried as hard as I could to give him my money but he simply would not accept any.
Although I left the cigar shop without the $5 bill I went in for, I did leave with three exquisite Cuban cigars free of charge.
So, I felt I needed to repay this guy for the ~$100 of free merchandise he gave me. I ordered him a keffiyeh made in the West Bank just like the one I was wearing. When it arrived, I popped back into the cigar shop and said " I have something for you." and put it on his desk.
I will never forget this for the rest of my life. How much did you pay for this?
I lied and said “Only about $60, don’t worry about it.”
You’re lying. What cigars are your favourite?
I insisted that he not give me any more cigars because I was trying to pay him back, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He ended up giving me four deluxe Cuban Bolivar cigars straight from Havana. On the way out he gave me a fist bump accompanied by a “Free Palestine”.
So Hexbears, this is how I unintentionally stocked my cigar humidor with solidarity for Palestine 🇵🇸✊
I’m going to save a spare one so that maybe one day I can smoke it on the beaches of Gaza when Palestine is free.
Yeah, that’s a common issue with wooden humidors. Could be either a leak or lack/need of seasoning. So, I’ll give the long story short: if you never seasoned your humidor, then you might just have to do that. I recommend sticking with the Bovedas for this, just watch the video, and follow their guide using their packs, for relative ease.
In the meantime, while your humidor seasons, you can keep your cigars in a freezer ziplock bag with a fresh 65rH Boveda inside. Afterwards, you can use the same Boveda in your newly seasoned humidor.
I’m not going to lie to you, it can be a pain to maintain wooden humidors. Some people love them but I officially surrendered to wooden humidors years ago. But some people love them and make it work. Others might recommend washing the wood with distilled water, which works and is an old way of doing it, but depending on how (in)correctly it’s done may lead to mold.
If you don’t want to go the Boveda seasoning route or can’t, or even if you do go with it, maybe ask your Cuban comrade for support with it. You can let him know you’re new and just want to make sure the cigars are well taken care of, I’m sure he’ll appreciate the concern and will be excited to teach you.