Foreign Cigarettes and Silly Me

Recently I was talking to some friends about the horrible smell of cigar smoke. They were all surprised that I had never smoked a cigar or anything… yes, you heard me correctly… I have never smoked ANYTHING. They laughed and all confessed to their adventures into smoking from cigarettes to weed. Which led me to tell them a funny story from my youth.

When I was younger I lived in Europe and I watched as people rolled their own cigarettes and proceeded to smoke these disgusting smelly, dirty looking cigarettes. Oddly, both my parents smoked, but their cigarettes were pretty and white with nice little filters… but these foreign smokes were just nasty. So when I returned to the United States it was many years before I smelled the horrible stench of my time in Europe.

I had boarded a Trailways bus in Orange County, California, ready for a four day trip that would take me to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. There, I would be met by my fiancé, Keith. He attended school there with the Coast Guard, and had called me to say we had to get married right away before orders were given. Why? Because if we didn’t get married before the orders, he would be sent to Alaska ALONE for eighteen months and our wedding would have to wait. So, I boarded the bus with all that I owned… in one suitcase, and off I went to marry the man of my dreams.

Halfway through the trip, a man entered the bus and made his way down the aisle to a seat across from me. His hair was long and his scruffy beard gave him a sense of a wanderer, but I’m sure all of us on the bus looked like we had a story. As the driver made his way down the interstate, the man pulled out some tobacco and began rolling his own cigarette. Oh, great, I thought. He’s got a stupid foreign cigarette! (Now I know what you are thinking, and just about everyone I tell this story to, begins to chuckle just about here…) He finished rolling the tobacco, looks around (because it is illegal to smoke on a bus) pulls out a match and lights up. I roll my eyes and shift in my seat. Someone behind him whispers, “You can’t smoke on a bus.” But he pretends he can’t hear them. Then he takes a long drag on that nasty cigarette, holds it in and lets the smoke out, penetrating the air around him.

Oh, Lord, I silently pray, as I try to pull my blouse up over my nose. But it wouldn’t reach and I took in a full mouth of the rancid odor. My hand waved in front of my face as his next puff was blown straight into my direction. Of course this was BEFORE I cursed, so I called him a JERK under my breath. Overhearing, he raised an eyebrow at me, then slowly took another drag and blew smoke full force in my direction. I bet you are wondering what I did next… You won’t believe me, but I can not tell a lie. I pulled my Right Guard out (that’s deodorant for you young folks) and I sprayed it straight at him. I heard the lady behind me chuckle, and the person behind him silently laughed in his seat. Of course, it didn’t stop him… after all, he was a jerk. But then the smell finally made its way to the driver who announced that he’d kick off whomever was smoking.

When I arrive in North Carolina, I tell Keith, over dinner, about the trip and the man with the foreign cigarettes. Keith begins to laugh. “Vikki,” he says, “that wasn’t a foreign cigarette, it was pot.” Being me, I argue with him, and tell him he’s wrong because how would he know, he’s never lived overseas before. I insist that it smells just like the cigarettes from my childhood.

FAST FORWARD fourteen years… Keith and I are in Hartford, Connecticut for a Bruce Springsteen concert. It was the first time we were away from our children and Keith, being a diehard Boss fan, was excited to experience my first Springsteen concert with me. The music starts up and the place starts to rock. The music was amazing and we were having a blast when SUDDENLY, I smell the stench of a foreign cigarette!

“Keith,” I pull at my husband’s sleeve, “Keith!” He bends down to hear my shout.

“What?”

“Someone is smoking a foreign cigarette!”

Now imagine his face for a moment as I interrupt him from the Boss to announce this ridiculous sentence. He looks at me, as if trying to decipher what I have just said, when suddenly he rears back and begins to laugh loudly. Shaking his head in disbelief, he pulls me close and says..”That’s pot, you silly! I told you!”

“Seriously?” I questioned with surprise.

“Yup, this is what I love about you. You are just too innocent!”

I looked back over my shoulder and stared at the smokers behind us. Pot, I thought, that stuff stinks! Why would anyone want to put that in their bodies? Then it hit me, perhaps those foreign cigarettes weren’t foreign at all, maybe they had all be marijuana! Oh, for crying out loud, I thought, I AM silly! 

So if you think you can smoke a joint around me and think I don’t know what it is… well, I can tell you that it’s NOT a foreign cigarette!