At a stoplight I saw a man in the back of a Ryder moving truck
full of Christmas wreathes. The back
door was open, stairs down as he stood in the truck bay rearranging
them. I waited for the light to turn
and watched as the truck shifted into gear and began to pull away, off to make another
delivery. The man took casual hold of
one of the wooden racks that held the wreathes, like a standing passenger grabs
a pole as the bus rounds a corner.
He wore a red Marlboro sweatshirt and blue jeans. I found myself wondering if anyone buys
Marlboro apparel, or if it is all free with proof of purchase. I began to imagine what else one might find
in the Marlboro catalog. Baseball caps
and Starter jackets I suppose; maybe NASCAR merchandise back when it was the
Winston Cup. Most importantly, does the
catalog include cigarettes or smokeless tobacco? If you can buy beer with beer cans, can you
buy tobacco products with tobacco products?
I bet not; after smoking twenty cartons and saving each proof of
purchase, who would choose a sweatshirt over another carton?
The sight may have made me think of Christmas, but all I could
focus on was the sweatshirt.
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