Camels: One hump or two?

     I was young and everyone was going to prom.  So instead of asking a girl I liked, I asked a girl I knew.  She said yes.
     We quadruple dated.  That's right, four guys and four girls in formals.  Laugh if you must.  We rented a station wagon but we looked like a clown car when we parked and everyone climbed out.
    The dance was a disaster.  She wore her hair in a bouffant and was at least 10 inches taller than me.  I had so many zits I looked like a connect a dot waiting to be filled in.  Neither one of us danced and oddly, I discovered we really didn't have anything in common except we knew each other.
     The following day we were all going on a picnic to a lake in Wisconsin.  Of course, my date did not know that, so when we pulled up in front of her house at 6:30 a.m she was sound asleep.  When she finally made it to the car, she carped the whole time.
    Being chivalrous, guys sat in the back end of the station wagon so the girls could have an actual seat.
    It was warm.  I remember the windows were open.  Even the back window on the wagon, which must have been before we were concerned about carbon monoxide poisoning.
     The guy who rented the car, Bob, had recently taken up smoking.  It was cool looking, at least that is my guess why.  He was the only one in the bunch who smoked.
     And he smoked Camels....pure, unfiltered cigarette tobacco.  He kept the pack rolled up in his sleeve.  And I suspect he had one behind his ear.  Let's pretend he did.  That's called embellishment.
     We had turned up some small road in Wisconsin, on our way to a lake....maybe Powers Lake, but that isn't important.
     For the last 90 minutes we had put up with, "Anyone want a smoke?" as he tooled down the road.  He was always met with silence.
    For some reason when he turned and asked again, I said, "Yeah,  I think I'll have a cigarette  now."
    People were shocked, shocked I tell you.
    He passed me one of his Camels and said, "Hey you are going to need a light."
     In a matter of fact manner I  replied, "No, I just chew them."
     I put the Camel in my mouth and bit off a huge chunk.  I began chewing when my mouth, throat and stomach literally erupted in cataclysmic convolution revolution that turned me inside out and a pale green.
    "Bob, Pull Over,"  somebody yelled.
     By then my head was out the back window and I was gagging up and out, brown spittle running down my chin and the back of the car.  And my shirt.
     I got some pop, and drank it.  That did not help.
     My date stopped talking to me.  I'm not complaining, just stating a fact.  She spent the entire day sleeping. ... Methinks I was possibly the worst prom date ever.
    So that is the fact you may not know about me.

I once ate a cigarette......once.

    Years later I ran into my date at a reunion.  I still had our $25 prom picture package.  I asked her if she would like me to send them to her, as a reminder of her high school days.
    She said it was an event from high school she really didn't want to remember.
    I think she could still see the brown tobacco juice on my shirt.