Apparently, you have to be of a certain age to purchase a frickin’ lighter now.

I’m on my way home, right? And I’m listening to my favorite emotion inducing CD, and I reach for my purse, cigarette dangling from my lips, begging to be lit, only to discover that I don’t know where my lighter is.

Fortunately, there’s a Seven Eleven, like right there. So I stop, get out, and stroll inside, to find out that they have no matches. Lighters are $1.62.

I weigh my options. It’s twenty minutes to home. If I can’t find my lighter, I don’t know where one is at home. $1.62. For fuck’s sake.

I go get some cash from the car. I go back in and hand the guy my two dollars, and he says, “Do you you have ID?”

Are you fucking kidding me? Really?

Okay. I’m flattered when I buy cigarettes and get carded. I’m even more flattered when I order drinks and get carded.

I don’t see where the flattery comes in when buying a fucking piece of plastic with lighter fluid and an igniter inside. I truly don’t.

“Are you serious?” I ask the guy. He kind of looks at me and shrugs, like, Well, now that I asked you, I can’t very well take it back.

Fuck that shit, I say in my head, you sure as hell can. I give him the eye, he’s looking pretty stupid. He knows it. I know it. I don’t have my ID on me. It’s 4:00 in the morning. I weigh my options yet again. Fuck.

I go back out to the car, get my ID, hand it to him, and say, “I hope that being twenty-nine qualifies me for owning a frickin’ lighter nowadays.” He shrugs, takes my money, and wishes me a good evening.

Fuck off, whatever.

I’m back in the car, on my way home, listening to John Mayer. It’s trite. I know. But it’s been a wierd night, and I want to remember a time when my body was a wonderland, and someone bought this CD because track number four reminded him of me, and I want to recall that one perfect moment of absolute and utter adoration I felt when he said that and I looked down and saw those words written in small letters on the back of the CD case, knowing what I’d see even before I looked.

I wanted to remember what it was like to have someone not let my head hit the bed without his hand behind it. I wanted to remember how several years and men later, even if it was hard to hear at the time, that there was someone better suited for me. It feels good to know that. I wanted to listen to this music, right now, that reminds me that even moments of perfect love aren’t really supposed to last forever, and aren’t really even good for you, even (and especially) if they did last forever.

I lit my cigarette with that lighter that cost me $1.62 and two trips to my car. And I thought about the past, and how life can change, even in two years, even in a day, even in just a moment, even with just a word. I thought about how sometimes, when someone tells you it’s forever, it’s really not. But that’s okay. Because I’ve got candy lips, and a bubblegum tongue, and my body is a wonderland. My hair falls in my face, and I come and go like no one can, and I buzz just like neon.

It’s trite, I know. But it got me home.