ZIP-O

ZIP-OOOooooooooo


When I think back at my youth in the early 90's, I have to wonder...  why the fuck did I have to have a zippo lighter? It was one of those things that a lot of teens like myself had and I'm starting to wonder how that even happened.  We were in a technological era that they didn't have much of a purpose as fire was easily accessible. Shit, every gas station already had lighters for sale that were very cheap.

That's another thing. I didn't smoke. Ever. The closest thing I came to that was buying my punk friends cigarettes when I turned 18. I didn't have it in me to smoke tobacco or even pot. So again I ask, why the fuck did I have a zippo lighter?

It seemed to be a right of passage to adulthood. Or at least the road to it. If you can be trusted to carry fire making in your pocket, perhaps you can be trusted to do other adult like shit like vote or buy smokes. But not drink yet, that's clearly four years after you can buy cancer sticks.

Not like we were going to be in the woods stranded. Though, the more I think about it, I spent a lot of time in the woods as a teenager and I'm now wondering how I am still alive. The woods is where you would go to do some hoodrat shit. Like drink beer you somehow stole away from the adults or throw rocks at a giant clown-spider like thing.  Look, these things just happened. I can't really explain it.

But with a lighter you can start fire and save yourself. I mean, if you had the money to buy lighter fluid. I don't even know where the fuck I would buy lighter fluid now and I just found two zippo lighters recently. I have no functional use for these things other than to get it confiscated at a security check point. Because, really, after 9/11 everything changed and we can't be trusted with items that could potentially start a small manigable fire that can easily be put out.

Think back to the 80's movies you watched. Not many DON'T have a scene where the teenager starts the fire sprinklers with a zippo lighter just to get out of it.  Maybe that's why I wanted and eventually got one. To get out of classrooms in the most extreme ways.

Look, I don't know where this is going. It was just an observation on my useless ownership of a lighter when I really didn't know why I had one. By the time you get one you are of driving age and all those cars have a lighter. I mean, where else would your USB charging chord go? Oh man, I'm charging my phone right now and can't use the car lighter. If only I had a zippo lighter.