Hookahs!

No, I actually don't own these two pictures.

My good friends just bought themselves a hookah...for the family! I had to die laughing, that's just not what I would think of as a gift that the kids and I could sit around an enjoy, but I'm sure if I thought about it we probably would. I called them to talk and found out that Niki had been trying to search the internet for ways to load the phunnel bowl on the hookah - correctly. Me, being the closet conservative that I am, would have found a number of health reasons not to allow a hookah in the house when I was at the mall and found a hookah store.The main reason I would never buy the family a contraption like this would be the overall temptation for the need to find a friend on the street with something more interesting to smoke than the Shisha! I've been rolling and smoking Earl Grey tea for years mind you, it smells and tastes remarkably like the "green leafy substance" often written up on police reports after a raid...not sure Earl Grey would taste the same in brownies, but it might be a good joke to pull at a church event! (Oh, I am just so bad....sorry Trudy, I promise, I won't do that! Well, yes I will, but only at John's house, I swear!)

I'm just sitting at my house tonight thinking how fun it would be to have a few cop friends stop by the Bauers and knock really hard on the door in about an hour or so! It would be so much fun to see them scatter around the house, and put their bong up - but the thing is, they're really only smoking the legal stuff - we don't break laws, but Niki would still be running around the house frantic thinking the smoke was somehow going to be grounds enough to put her away for a year or two...maybe I'll call Eric and set it up, he can blow a little Earl Grey just before the cops arrive....I'll video.

I'm forever telling the Bauers to wait and hold off their really good family fights so I can get my Sony out and record it. With their son Eric's mean commerce streak and my eye for good photo angles, we could clean up on the reality show sets on YouTube. I know our sites would be hitting in the millions over and over, and Niki with her Greek ancestry coming out, Big Eric's Boston fisherman's echo - sheer ecstasy in the virtual world...I'd even insight a fight just to get the best of them. It would be several minutes before they realized they'd been set up. Hookahs blowing, smoking up the place, Big Eric wielding his cooking spatula and knives in the air trying to get even ONE word in but having to fight the higher squealing of little tiny Athena over there pulling up the vivid past and how its been a factor in every decision she's ever made and had to live with - - then they'd laugh. They'd both join forces and meet together to stone me....and my camera. I'm sure that part could be edited - unless we're going for the R-rating.

Do you see the tattooed back? That's what I would look like after a few puffs on the hookah! I know I would. I think they say the hookah's smoke is like 10 times stronger than cigars or something. I smoke cigars, I do. I don't mind admitting that. I'm all for a good Pyrate's night of it, rounding out the midnight hour with a few toasts of wine, a little loud hillbilly music (thanks Dwight!) and a good cigar, I do that - but that hookah just ... I don't know, scares me. It looks so devilish. It reminds me of the ancients and their libations as they swear to their gods and ancestors that they'll make a pact to the death to do something remarkable or die trying...or is that just me? I think the whole concept is meant to put one at ease...I'd be the only highly strung hookah blower out there, wondering when the effects were going to hit and if I'd be in control of myself if they did.

I think I almost bought one for my daughter but remembered she had asthma. I thought no, I'll let her die on her own. I won't help - but now give me a good Chablis, maybe a box of rum runners and a dancing pole in the living room. I'm...almost....there - - crank up the stereo, turn out the lights (you don't to actually SEE me on the pole yet...best left up to the ears than the eyes at this point) I'm good. Have fun Bauers...call me if you need directions to load the phunnel bowl again, at least I was successful at Googling that.