Your Kid a Stogie Fan? Well, Get a Clue

The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta recently warned that the nation faces an epidemic of teenage cigar smoking. Herewith a guide for parents to tell if their children might be succumbing to stogie-mania.

1) Does your child show an abnormal interest in Cuban geography?

2) Instead of DisneyWorld, has your youngster pleaded for the family to take the summer vacation in Pinar del Rio?

3) Have your child’s Spanish grades suddenly improved?

4) Is your teenager’s favorite play “Romeo y Julieta?”

5) Instead of a lunch box, does your youngster tote his or her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school in a humidor?

6) Has your child suggested stashing Zippo lighters around the house in case of emergencies instead of flashlights?

7) Does the toenail clipper in your child’s medicine cabinet resemble the silver cigar snipper at Tiffany’s?

8) Has your child recently started a garden that mostly consists of broad-leafed plants that he or she wants to age in the tool shed?

9) Is your child’s favorite politician Winston Churchill?

10) Instead of folding the laundry, does your youngster roll up the bath towels?

11) On your last vacation in Key West, did your teenager try to swim to Havana?

12) Has your child been beaten up by other children for selling cheap Mexican Te Amos re-banded as Macanudos?

13) Have you found mysterious holes in your child’s sheets that seem to fit perfectly with a double corona 50-gauge?

14) Has your child suggested you make a charitable contribution to the Tobacco Institute?

15) Did your child make an ashtray in ceramics class?

16) Have you noticed strange additions to your grocery list--say, single malt scotch?

17) Does your child seem to know too much about the Helms-Burton Amendment?

18) Has your child asked for a tuxedo?

19) Did your teenager recently fail a history exam after he or she wrote an essay on Bolivar--”available in coronas gigantes, petit coronas and tubos”?

20) Does your child spend a disproportionate amount of time in his or her room staring at a black light poster of Cigar Aficionado impresario Marvin Shanken?

If you answered “yes” to more than five questions, your child might be at risk and should under no circumstances be allowed to continue dressing up as Fidel Castro on Halloween.

If you answered “yes” to more than 10 questions, your youngster could very well be a closet cigar addict and you should no longer let him or her use your credit card to order thoseplain-wrapped packages from the Dunhill shop in London.

If you answered “yes” to more than 15 questions, you might considering canceling yourteenager’s subscription to Smoke magazine.