How a Cigarette Saved My Life

If you read the title, you probably think it’s clickbait. Cigarettes are meant to shorten lives, not expand them, but this cigarette did save me. It wasn’t my cigarette. I’ve never smoked and never will, so how could a cigarette possibly save my life?

When I was in my early twenties, I worked for a family-owned grocery store. The store was small, and a breakroom hadn’t been an important addition to the owners, so the only thing we had were two benches that were accessible to the customers as well. This area was where we usually took breaks. During the day, our ‘break area’ was alive with activity, but at night people usually avoided the area unless the odd person needed a smoke break.

I was young and naïve, so I continued to take my nightly breaks outside. For the most part, it was peaceful. I suppose that I also felt a false sense of security, which I assumed was from being outside of a familiar place. That sense of security was ripped away from me one night when I went outside for a break and two men spotted me and came sprinting up to me.

The men who were around my father’s age wore all black. One of them was holding what looked like a large menu. I watched them pass up two older women to get to where I was sitting. “Excuse me, miss?” those words have never proceeded anything positive. I glanced up at him, hoping he would see that I didn’t want to be bothered and leave me alone. He either didn’t get the message or didn’t care because he went on to tell me that he was selling perfumes.

“No thanks, I don’t wear perfume,” I said. I thought telling them that would get them to leave me alone, but I was wrong again. One of the men started naming the perfumes that he claimed to have. He emphasized the Britney Spears perfume as if it were his biggest seller. He started telling me that he had samples that I could smell, which seemed unlikely since neither of them was carrying anything aside from the menu and their black long sleeve attire didn’t leave room for perfume or samples.

“No thanks, I don’t buy perfume and don’t have any money to buy any.” I thought he would give up after hearing that I had no money, but he only grew more persistent.

“Just smell it. It smells so good. You’ll love it,” he said.

I was growing frustrated and afraid. Why wouldn’t these men just go away? I raised my voice, “I don’t want to buy any perfume, I like to stink!” I yelled. It wasn’t something that I would have normally said, but I was done with the conversation and I wanted them to leave.

“She likes to stink,” he laughed to his friend.

People were glancing over now, and I thought about going inside since it was clear that I wasn’t going to get any peace. One of the store managers came out to smoke a cigarette. I wasn’t sure if he had heard me, or if he had just wanted to take a smoke break, but his eyes never wavered from the two men. Suddenly, the men couldn’t get away fast enough. They almost tripped over themselves to get away from me as if I were suddenly covered in toxic waste. They didn’t approach anyone else, they just disappeared somewhere behind the building.

I thought the encounter was weird, so I told one of my coworkers about it when I came back from my break. She informed me that she’d seen a story on the news where men were approaching women and getting them to sniff ‘perfume samples’ that were actually chloroform. These men were selling the women they kidnapped into human tracking. I was close to this coworker, so she made me promise that I wouldn’t take breaks alone at night anymore.

I never saw the men again, but I couldn’t help but wonder why they had targeted me. I believe it had something to do with my appearance. I’ve always looked young for my age so despite being in my twenties, I was often mistaken for a seventeen-year-old. I assume that’s why they wanted me since they passed up two women who were clearly adults and possibly had money to spare. While I’m aware that it could happen to anyone, I’m sure that those men were looking for a particular type of victim.