[ Post a Response | The Sublime Desire of Cigarette Smoking ]
Posted by M G F on May 24, 2009, 2:40 pm, in reply to "Re: "Do I?" / This Week's Forum Header Image"
The image, rhetorical questions, and resulting discussions take me back to a summer of internal conflict.
I was 16 years old and would be 17 by the end of the summer. I'd gotten a job working at a cheap Mexican restaurant with a large college student clientele. It was a sort of hang out for them and many of the employees, myself included, hung around when off duty. There was one customer in particular, I'll call him Ricky, who I wanted to notice me. He was tall, somewhat muscular, and had a magnificent mane of sun-streaked dark blond hair. He also couldn't have cared less about a 16 year old waitress. I'd been a dedicated smoker for five years, and was quite comfortable with my deadly vice. I enjoyed the rebelliousness of it. I liked the fact that I was doing something that was Bad in so many different ways - bad for me physically, bad because I was breaking the rules, bad because "nice" girls didn't smoke. Nice girls. Until then, I had taken a certain pleasure in not fitting the stereotypical image of a teen smoker. I made exceptionally good grades, was a hard worker, didn't break curfew, didn't dress provocatively, etc. When people learned that I was a smoker, they almost always expressed surprise. I liked the contradiction. I also liked Ricky and wanted him to notice me. For some reason I decided that he would be more likely to notice and interact with me if I looked like a smoker. (Keep in mind, I hung out at the burrito shack quite a bit and smoked openly, just like everyone else, so he knew I smoked. But looking like a smoker seemed to my infatuated mind like the thing to do.)
But what does a smoker look like? My cut off shorts became just a little shorter and tighter. I tied my tee shirts in knots at the side a little higher (This was the 80's. It made sense at the time) I got my navel pierced and added a couple of holes to my ears, and started wearing just a little more makeup. Gradually, as the weeks passed, I changed my outward appearance from good girl next door to teen rebel smoker. It was fun, but it didn't work. Ricky didn't notice me. It also didn't feel right. It wasn't me. So, I went back to being who I really was: A sweet teenager with a deadly habit.
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