The icing on the cake

I've had a love hate relationship with Dallas Texas.

A trifle over ten years ago I spent two months living here and whilst I'm not prepared to go into the detail it was not, shall we say, a good experience. When I left Dallas on that occasion I was quite sure I'd never see the place again!

Uh huh. In the last year and a half I've been here what, nine times? Ten? I've lost count and I'm too bloody lazy to go back through the blog to get the count.

I'm quite warming to the place. I won't go quite so far as to say I want to live here but I'm finding the place much more congenial than I expected. When my wife came over for a weekend last February I quite enjoyed playing the role of the local as I drove her around the Plano area in search of dinner.

The young lady at the hotel checkin desk yesterday made a brave and almost successful attempt at remembering my name. Certainly she knows the face by now. What nightmares she must endure!

On that February weekend we discovered that cigarettes are quite a bit cheaper here than in Phoenix. Why? *shrug*. Sales tax can't account for a 25% difference.

Well whatever, I'd forgotten about the price difference when I ran out of smokes tonight and went to the local Albertsons supermarket. Ordered a carton (and I note that the guy went to the individual packet[^] and then corrected himself and said 'carton, right?'). When he rang it up and it came to only 28 bucks I said, 'well if that's the price I'll have 2 cartons of those and 2 cartons of Marlboro Ultra Lights' (my wife smokes those). He asked, 'is that a good price for you?' Damn straight it is; it's 38 bucks where I live.

Am I now a cigarette smuggler? No idea. There's probably some obscure law somewhere not enforced since the 1930's covering the carriage of cigarettes across state lines. Hmm, that'd make it an FBI matter and I'm about to undergo an FBI background and security check. Nah, posting here won't matter. There must be dozens of Rob Mandersons from Australia living in Phoenix and commuting to Dallas. :-)

But for right now the 25% price difference is just the icing on the cake!