Smoke Doesn’t Always Equal Fire

I took this photo and thought I’d write a story about it and that was already weeks and weeks ago. The story didn’t come out then, but I guess it will now.

Once upon a time, the price of cigarettes was a lot less.

I’m not saying anyone should smoke or start smoking, let me clear that up. But there was a time when everything was analog: photography, music, mail, shopping (?),  and cigarettes.

When I was in college there was a summer where my life consisted of days that would reach 95 degrees with lots of humidity, waiting tables at a steakhouse, driving a ’90 Nissan with no air conditioning, and smoking exactly one and half Marlboro Lights per day. Everyone in college smoked, you see. I mean this was the South in the 90’s. But no one smoked in their apartments and it was absolutely forbidden in the dorms. 

Lucky for me, I lived in an apartment and my roommate would be gone all summer. All of her shit was packed in her room, still in boxes, as we had moved all her stuff over at the end of the spring semester. So, I smoked in the apartment. It was a given she would be pissed if she found out although she, herself, smoked exactly two Marlboro Lights per day on the steps leading down from our second floor apartment every day while we were in school. And always in outside clothes, never the clothes she wore inside. I decided this would just be a summer thing. Everyone had vacated the college town to go home for the summer. To Houston, to Austin, to Longview. But I was stuck taking a class to help graduate on time and working to pay for the fall semester. My parents lived out of state and so the lonely summer of waiting tables, rewatching Breakfast at Tiffany’s and smoking would begin. 

A pack of Marlboro Lights was $1.99 plus tax... $2.15. 

A few times during the summer I would visit Houston and go to clubs with my former roommate. The clubs were always in extremely questionable areas of the city and we were always standing in line, in the humid night air waiting to get inside while wearing our super-short black skirts and cropped tops - all from Express. Our nails painted in colors like Revlon’s Toast of New York. 

Once the summer was over and my roommate was heading back for fall, I tossed the rest of my Marlboro Lights into the trash can outside the campus bookstore and walked inside and purchased $300 worth of books for classes like Media Law, Film Appreciation and Biology. 

I’ve never smoked another cigarette. Every time I walk by someone, standing outside a building and smoking the smell isn’t revolting as much as it is a reminiscence.