Unbearable lighters

 

When I was a freshman in college I lived on a dorm hallway populated with the expected wide variety of personalities. There was the exchange student, the republican, the southerner, the stoner and I was the religious Jew. There was also the wheeler-dealer. He always had an angle and was always working on something.

One day he was wandering the hall holding a briefcase. I asked him about it and he opened it, showing off a selection of fancy lighters that he was selling. No bics, these – you had to open the top and twirl the cylinder thingie. They were fancy! And one of them was a gleaming gold.

Here I am, miles from home, finally in charge of my own expenses and interested in helping out a hall-mate, so, of course, I bought one. I don’t smoke and living in a college dorm meant that I rarely had to start a fire to keep warm, microwave popcorn or drink a beer.

I told myself I would gift it to my dad – some sort of culturally ordained retirement gift, like a gold watch, except this was a lighter because he had a watch. And didn’t smoke. And wasn’t retiring. So, knowing that he might not want or appreciate this gift, I held on to it, you know, just for safe keeping. And once every while and a half, I took it out, flicked it open and lit it, you know, just to make sure that when I gave it to him, or anyone, it would be ready for use. Also, it was shiny and I liked looking at it. It made me feel independent and grown up. I bought this. I used my money and made a decision, and this is mine. So, back into the decorative box with you, I am going to own you some more.

Growing up, all purchases had to be approved of by the parents. Well, not all – heaven knows how much money (of theirs) I spent on my ever growing music collection. College was a chance to buy things that I wanted and not feel like anyone was going to check up on me. Yes, yes, when I bought food and Calvin+Hobbes books from the bookstore, I often asked the cashier to write “texts” on the charge slip, so I’m guilty of that, and when I took cash out of the Shawmut machine (I wasn’t a Bay Bank guy) it was money my parents gave to me for the school year, but this was still a step in the direction of autonomy. For my high school years, I was on a strict, weekly allowance of $10 (to buy lunch each day, unless I wanted to make my own lunch and take it to school. Yuck.) If I couldn’t liberate another couple of bucks from my mom’s wallet, I was stuck with that $10, and when you are addicted to playing pinball, and eating lots of fresh-baked bakery cookies each day, ten dollars doesn’t last very long.

Then I get to college, already on a meal plan and with no particular need for oodles of cash, and there it is. I had gone to the ATM and made sure I always had cash on hand for splurges and whims. When I saw the lighter, and knew I had a $20 in my pocket incapable of burning a hole the way a lighter could; the course of action seemed simple and obvious. I wanted something and I had the ability to buy it so I was going to be my own man and get it. Consequences, shmonsequences. Heck, maybe I’d take up smoking, or go wander into the woods and need to make a forest fire or something.

It is weird how we assert our independence and how we rebel. Little things become symbols of who we are and how we were thinking. That lighter was an impulse purchase, a secret that I both wanted to reveal and needed to hide. It was a lie I told myself and a deeper truth that, even at the moment, I knew.

Thirty plus years later and that lighter is somewhere, I’m sure. A drawer or a box. Maybe the attic. Still in the decorative box. Still waiting for me to develop the right wrong habits. Still waiting to be a gift to my dad.