Smoking

by R.K. West

Mike smoked more than anyone else I’ve ever known. He used the last half inch of his cigarette to light the next one, and could keep doing that for hours. Unlike all the other smokers I know, he had no brand preference. He’d consume a pack of Camels one day, and puff away at Marlboros the next. Watching him fire up a menthol Tiparillo with the stub of a Newport, I commented on his lack of brand loyalty, and he laughed. “In the eighties I smoked Virginia Slims almost exclusively,” he said, “because it really pissed off my old man.”

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R.K. West is a former ESL teacher and travel blogger currently hiding out in the Pacific Northwest.