Smoking Skills
Back when I was a fresh out of college, clueless oaf, I got a job working in a large building that housed several independent businesses. My company shared the second floor with another company; we had separated internal spaces but shared areas like the stairs and the external fire escape.

The fire escape is also where the smokers used to gather. Both of the companies were fairly small and only a few people smoked from each. A girl from the other company and I being the only smokers of similar age got into the habit of going out for cigarettes together. If either of us saw the other going for a smoke we'd go out and keep each other company, smoke a cigarette, have a chat and go back in.

Only that’s not the only reason I went, she was stunning, a beautiful blonde lady with an indy / hippy style. She used to wear these baggy jeans, skate shoes and a skinny fit t-shirt which showed off about an inch of midriff. This really did it for me, her really pretty face and the flash of her flat stomach both seemed amplified, yet contrasted, by her plain and unassuming style.

From just spending time with each other smoking half a dozen times a day, we grew to be good friends and the more I knew about her, the more I liked. We got on great, we shared similar tastes in music, films, books, ideals and outlook and we seemed, to me at least, to be forming a close bond.
One day whilst having a smoke we both started singing, for no reason, "Undone: the sweater song" by Weezer. After which we laughed, then she gave me a hug and we both went back to work.

The hug played on my mind after that. She wouldn't just hug me if we were just smoking buddies would she?
Clearly this was the sign to act that I'd been waiting for her to give me. So I started thinking about how to ask her out. Being the dashing, suave and quite frankly brilliant man that I am I decided I'd write her a little poem on a cigarette, as that's how I got to know her after all.

So with some practice I managed to write on the side of a Marlboro light the following:

"I want to burn at your lips and die at your feet"

Awesome. She'd love it. She'd admire both my incredible and not at all cheesy prose and my not-to-be-underestimated skill of writing on a ciggy without it blotting up or tearing it. She'd be putty in my hand. Fetch the mop, things were going to get sticky round here.

So when I saw her walk past the window later that afternoon, I nipped out, smokes in hand.

As we leaned on the fire escape banister overlooking the car park, I passed her the cigarette carefully positioned so she could not fail to notice the writing on its side. She took it from my hand said "thanks", and then absently rolled it by the filter between her fingers whilst gazing across the business estate, before lighting it up and smoking it.

I didn't try it again. It really is quite tricky and a bit stupid to write love letters on cigarettes.
( Dervel OTBC, Thu 10 Dec 2009, 16:43, Reply)