"Cigar band collecting is called vitolphilia." - Wikipedia*. Also, a plastic box with an equally plastic lid can be called a tote-box. That's what I keep my old cigar bands in. What sized tote? Blue. A tote-sized tote-box... and it's full three-quarters filled. This is neither journalism nor math. I know no more as to why this collection of mine exists than I do why I myself exist. We both just happen to occupy space and time in a little powder-yellow house in the Pacific Northwest. It's mainly nice.
A further description of my vitolphilia really doesn't exist either. It's not as if I engage in vitology via any form of studying my personal collection, or bands in general. However, I did twice buy Pearl Jam's Vitalogy CD in the '90s. Once mid-way through the decade and again towards its end. Good band. But I digress and alas, I'm no vitologist. I'm just a guy who can't seem to throw out a cigar band. I can't even say I love them. Or visit them ever, other than when I add a couple handfuls more. I suppose they just seem inherently more important than the trash can.
Maybe my cigar smoking is just a thing I do that I don't want forgotten. Although I don't guess future archeologists will gather in my bedroom closet. Believe it or not, my kid probably won't be looking for proof of my cigar smoking--he'll most likely remember that much without the need for a memory-jarring box of paper props. Nor will I be using my collection of cigar bands for the purpose of fame, as I'm no Joe Hruby; his 221,000 distinct varieties seem ::: very ::: much*. So I'm left with the odd thought that if it is for memory's sake, it's for my own.
I'll sometimes think of writing a little something on the back of one, "Birthday 2022," but I never do. It just gathers in a spare ashtray with the others until they need to relocate to the tote in the bedroom closet. There under the fancier shirts I can't fold and alongside assorted other and lesser lauded totes. The goal, it would seem, is not of individual memories. Some folks I've heard keep wine bottle corks. I've tried that and it didn't take. I suppose they just aren't that important to me and/or my sense of self. I'm fairly certain my sense of self doesn't work that way.
But what if somewhere deep in my insides, I associate these cigar bands with pieces of me? As fragments of my own divinity which I've spent meaningful moments of time with. Nah, that's bullshit. I'll probably delete that before going to press with this. Also, I have no desire to get artsy with my bands. They won't be laminated into furniture, scrap-booked, or otherwise collaged. They're quite where they'll ever be, there in the blue tote-box. Sands of time-spent in an hourglass signifying its and my passing. More-so a static rebellion of such. No. That's bullshit too.
The truth of the matter is I have a feeling I'll someday understand my compulsion to never part with a one. And boy, that would be a sad day if I didn't keep them all. Imagine, trash day is Wednesday and the epiphany strikes Saturday. Or perhaps it's more like that episode where Al Bundy's socks keep getting stolen by those aliens who need them to fuel their spaceship. I like that, but then I've always felt a haughty and sneakily gaudy sense of lazy purpose anyway.
::: very :::