In Sighting #33 on my top ISF sightings list, I conveyed one of three killer sightings I scored at the Whitney Duncan concert that amazing Saturday night at the 2010 Iowa State Fair. But even before the concert, in the early evening hours, I would score one mega-blockbuster that set the stage for what the evening would bring…
Darkness arose fairly quickly at this point, and the cooler temperatures that came with sunset couldn’t come soon enough for me. I was scoring a flurry of solid sightings just after dusk, but none better than this one. There’s a mini alley next to the fairgrounds’ largest bar on the west side where I spotted an adorable brunette teen cutie sitting down by herself on a step. It didn’t take long to realize she was about to smoke a cigarette, and sure enough, from a pack of Marlboro Menthols resting on her lap came out an all-white which she inserted into her lips and fired up. She was wearing a yellow shirt (and jean shorts) with the same writing on it as did the girl a few feet away running the walking taco stand. I surmised she was a worker in the walking taco stand taking a break. I found a decent but still awkward place to sit nearby and watch the show at close range. She was a total cutie, a girl-next-door dark brunette about 16 or 17, and she was clearly no rookie at this whole cigarette-smoking thing, taking long drags and producing cloudy exhales.
I had to be really discreet watching the show, however, given the close proximity at which I was observing. After about three drags, the sighting took a most eventful and adorable turn. A middle-aged man approached her, also wearing a T-shirt similar to hers and sat down next to her. It didn’t take long to realize he was the girl’s father, and when I discovered the slogan “The Depot” on the front of their shirts, I realized that the girl didn’t necessarily work at the walking taco stand. She probably worked in some capacity at the bar and grill adjacent to it that was advertised “The Depot”, and was working there with her father during fair season, probably as a temporary summer job before returning to school in a week and a half…and to help pay for cigarettes…
Whatever the case, the girl was very comfortable smoking a cigarette in front of her father and was asking him about some people. The father pointed into the seating area just outside The Depot that is also in that alley. The underage girl wandered into the crowd, dragging from her cigarette and meandering through all the tables looking for people. Frustrated that she wasn’t finding her party, she walked back towards the father, who was just lighting up a cigarette of his own. With a smoldering cigarette in her hand that was glowing in the early evening hours, she frustratedly asked “Dad, where’s Amy and Jessica?” The father, frustrated himself, stood up and started walking towards the group he was pointing at, but seemed to discover that they weren’t there once he started walking that direction. Whatever the case, the teen smoker went in the midst of the tables and was eventually recognized by somebody who beckoned her to sit with them. It was a cluster of adults, perhaps the parents of the girls she was looking for, and this cutie was again more than comfortable finishing her cigarette in their presence.
The dynamic of this underage smoker girl being so comfortable around all these adults as she stunk up the joint was one of several factors that made this sighting so satisfying. Little did I know, the evening had even greater things in store for me.
Mark's Smoke Blog 