We have a crisis of sorts here. It is time to venture off the property and go shopping for controlled substances. That includes two versions of products produced in the United States by the Philip-Morris corporation. The history of the brand has an odd resonance with everything else happening these days. Smoking is now a well-known health hazard. That transition from “Most Doctor’s recommend Camel cigarettes” to something closer to “users of this product are anti-social deviants.”

Since we will be shopping for the “red box” version as well as the shorter 72-millimeter brand in the white boxes in order to provide less anti-social behavior in the Writer’s Section by those two or three recalcitrant puffers. Marlboro had been founded as a women’s cigarette in the days when hardy masculine smokers puffed cigars. You might recall those large dark things that took a half hour to burn completely down. Tastes changed, and cigars were the first restricted smoking devices. To approach that new social norm, Philip Morris switched the brand focus of the product. They added rugged characters like the Marlboro Man in advertising copy, and became the world’s No. 1 cigarette brand in 1972. It has held that proud anti-social distinction ever since. In fact, the Marlboro market share is bigger than the next ten brands combined.

The shorter Marlboro product in the white boxes is designed to appeal for the feminine puffer, but that immediately caused problems. For many of us in the huddle out on the balcony, purchasing tobacco from the Federal Government on military bases lessened the cost. When we lived or worked on such installations, it was a good deal. Now, driving to a base to access those selective sales services involves using oil-products to move the autos, so we had to discover the civilian prices at what are now “tobacco and vape” establishments. That was in order to balance convenience and overhead costs in the acqusition phase of social abuse.

Someone suggested we just quit the habit, or transition to that vaping thing which involves no incendiary process. Melissa outlined her position on that. “Vaping is a version of the habit that emits less external exhaust, but also allows puffing indoors, which means you can do more of it. Like back in the old days of puffing away at our desks. The White Box Marlboros are shorter, and we only smoke out on the balcony. The problem is making the effort to go to the Base and show your identity card about eight times to prove you are entitled to save 5% below the prices on the civilian economy. Plus, the active duty crowd prefers the Red boxes since they are a subtle dose of toxic masculinity.”

That topic led eventually to a decision to try the civilian store and see if they had a stock of White boxes, though we suspect the colors will inevitably lead to accusations of partisan hue control in some shadowy patriarchal marketing department.

Splash casually flicked a butt over the balcony railing. “Cigarettes are not the only anti-social things. The Chinese apparently have been flying gigantic balloons all over the world. NORAD indicated that they violated US airspace in the Caribbean years ago. We had no idea where they launched those things from. In fact, apparently we had no idea that gigantic things that were big enough to appear moon-like from the ground in Montana.”

“The wreckage is pretty impressive. We saw images of the USS Carter Hall hauling Chinese junk out of the waters off Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, this morning. The Pentagon is offering the newest version of the truth this morning. Apparently the Chinese balloon reconnaissance program was global in scope. We used to do that, back in the 1950s, but gave up for U2 spy planes and satellites. Apparently they also gave up looking for balloons.”

“They are slow, and only as big as the Moon if you are standing a little closer. They said 40 nations have been crossed on five continents.”

“But they were unknown prior to this week’s NORAD embarrassment. Now, a week later we know all kinds of stuff, so some of us must have known. NORAD is a multi-national command, US and Canada, so you can imagine the confusion with someone trying to speak French in the Combat Information Center.”

“Zut alors!” said Splash. “C’est merde grande!” Then he fished in his pocket for a package of the Red ones. They are longer than the White box products, but it is only a matter of millimeters. Certainly nothing as massive as giant balloons floating innocently through space. It is enough to make you understand the concept of “overhead” in marketing plans. We don’t know exactly who the Chinese were appealing to on this campaign, but the current moon phase is waning. That might be something the folks at Philip-Morris might want to look into, you know?

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com