I learned a lot of lessons from a hard experience. Some of them were funny at the time, others were not funny till years later.
I decided it was cool to smoke cigarettes in the 7th. Grade. I had dabbled with them before when I was much younger with bad results. This time I thought I was grown up and I wanted to keep up with the 'cool' kids. I was tired of being a square which is what we were called if we had strict parents and wouldn't join in with things we knew were wrong. But heck I knew lots of grown ups who smoked. It looked sophisticated to me. I had even seen cigarettes in the Home Ec. teachers desk drawer. Of course She didn't want us to know she smoked and we never saw her smoke. My friend Pat and I were in the home ec. Building one day alone. Now I have no idea if we sneaked in or how we came to be there alone but we were.
I said, “Pat, Teacher has some cigarettes in her desk drawer”. “Aww Clydene she does not” she answered. “Well I'll show you”, I said. I opened the drawer and rummaged around till I found the cigarettes. “See Pat, I told you. Lets smoke one”. Pat was all for it. There was even a book of matches and an ash tray there with the cigarettes. We lit up with difficulty. I even had mine flaming up at one time. Don't know how that happened.
We waltzed our little smart elec fannies in to the living room and sat down on the couch and just puffed up a storm. About the time I got choked I looked over at Pat and she was white as snow except for a green tinge around her eyes. My eyes were watering till I couldn't see a thing then I got sick.
Pat looked out the window and exclaimed that the teacher was coming. “Oh my gosh Pat we gotta get rid of these and get outta here”, I said. “What are we gonna do with them Clydene” she answered. “Oh Heck fire Pat, I'm sick and I can't see a thing”!
We took off running to the kitchen sink to run water over the cigarettes. I couldn't see so before I got there I heard the teacher coming in the door and I smashed that dang thing in my hand and of course it burned. I screeched like a wild animal of some kind just as our teacher got inside. In the meantime Pat has vomited all over the place but at least she had gotten her cigarette put out.
What happened? Well not much. The teacher did tell Miss Sula Kate on us and we did get a good talking to but Teacher got almost the same treatment when Miss Sula Kate told her she had no business having the cigarettes in her desk. There was no nurse in schools at the time so Miss Sula Kate doctored and bandaged my hand. Oh and by the way she told me I deserved a burned hand for what I did. I know now that I did deserve it. Yep, some lessons I learned the hard way.
Tags: Cigarettessick Burnedteacher
