At the time we grеw up, smoking was just part of life. It seemed that everyone smoked then, and there was practically no such house where the ashtray would not stand on the coffee tables, bedside table, and kitchen counter, toilet cistern in the toilet and in any other places where it could be placed. There was no such undergraduate who would not make a clay ashtray for her mom in the school craft workshop so that she could put it somewhere and proudly shake the ashes there. At that time, it was pretty difficult to buy cheap cigarettes anywhere, but it did not affect the desire to smoke.

Being a big fan of tabloid detective novels and films in the noir genre, we could not help but notice that their characters literally live with alcohol and cigarettes. Despite the fact that we do not smoke, we do not suffer from the so-called tobacco-phobia now. Of course, smoking is maybe a very peculiar habit, but it is not at all the evil that is sometimes portrayed. And it is pretty useful. Cheeseburgers are probably more harmful to health than tobacco smoke. It seems that the most paranoid attitude towards the so-called “passive smoking” is shown by the same people who wring their hands about “global warming” and “overpopulation” – two stupid pseudoscientific “problems”.
So, we want to say that people were ready to smoke when they did not manage to buy cheap cigarettes.

Cigarettes always were expensive goods. Now, we got used that they can be ordered at discount prices on web shops, but then, no, we could even not imagine that….

And we ask ourselves why people cannot once remember the past and estimate advantages they now have.

Maybe, a time machine is needed to make them remember what they have easily forgotten.