Oops, wife posted the box and didn't give me the DC receipt -- sorry. Well, it got there. Actually, she told me 3 times "it's out in the car", but you already know how lazy I am...
Ok, "my brush with fame." Well, sort-a.
Pretty much,
JR Cigars gets 92.7% of my cigar business, and I totally dig them. They're fast, efficient, informative, have a wide selection, and are cheap.
As a newbie to the hobby, I'd taken it upon myself to try their weekly specials every time I ordered something -- I figured that was a good way to broaden my horizons. So, when I placed and order a while back, and they had TWO weekly specials -- each a 10-box of something with the Havana2000 wrapper (something that I'd been reading a lot about, and was anxious to try) -- I ordered both a box of he Henry Clay and the Santa Damiana. For comparative purposes, you understand!
The cigars came the same day as my 1st pass was to go out, and I was also doing a trade on the side, so I tossed one of each in my pass, and 2 each in the trade -- putting the rest in my file-idor to "settle in." (My theory was, people have been so generous to me, I should probably start being generous, too, and handing out cigars
)
My trade box comes, and it rocks.
Then I get an e-mail from my trader: Dude! 4 moldy cigars -- both HCs and SDs. Ut oh...
I e-mail the first person on my first pass (Gekko777, who I can't seem to get ahold of, so he missed this pass :\) and ask him to watch for mold in those two cigars. They got it; he replaced them (Thanks, Gekk!) So, I check the remainder of my stash: every single cigar moldy. So I go to JR's web page, and fire off an e-mail asking how to exchange them. What I didn't know was that their e-mail server exploded about an hour before I sent this, and was down for 3 days. A week later, I call their 800# "hey, what the heck? Don't you guys answer e-mail?" Anyway, they were polite to me, and offered to send me a fresh box, asap, which they did. I store it. An hour later, I think "I should probably check these, too". Moldy. 10 out of 10. I call back, "hey, can I just send these back -- I don't want another box, I'll just sit & think about what to order, later", sure, no sweat.
So, I'm telling this story over on ASC, trying to give an unbiased report about my experience, and a few of the regulars there who are also big JR fans write to the the owner, the #2 guy and their assistants, saying "WTF?!" on my behalf.
The next day, I get a phone message from Steve Saka (#2 honcho at the JR juggernaugt (500,000,000 cigars a year -- over 1,000,000 per day! (and they're closed weekends!))) asking me to call him back on his personal cell. I do, and we have this great chat for about 45 minutes during which I'm amazed at how conversational the guy is, and I have no sense, whatsoever that this super cigar dude is trying to rush through this and get me off the phone (this is the "brush with fame" part. What, you were expecting Barry Bonds, or something?
) In the end, he asks for my address, he wants to send me a couple of cigars that he likes. I explain that it isn't necessary, but there's no stopping a man intent on sending you cigars, so I give in and tell him. (He's got my adx on file, anyway, since I order regularly from his company.)
2 days later, the nice postman arrives with a box containing 42 assorted cigars. OVER TWO BOXES of cigars and a nice note, just to pacify a customer who wasn't really that upset, anyway.
So, this pass has several cigars that are gifts of Steve Saka, cigar bigwig, generous gentleman, and all around helluva guy.
In fact, I think I might just go smoke a Saka cigar right now!
