The Pink Lighter Column
Written October 13, 2003

It happens every time. Some unnamed randomo saunters over, cigarette in mouth: “Hey, you got a light?” I nod in accordance, alcohol-hampered fingers fumbling in each pocket until finally the lighter is found and carefully placed into the eager hands of a complete stranger. A brief flare illuminates surrounding faces for an instant and the smoke is lit, the lighter awaiting return in an impatiently outstretched hand. I wait.

The randomo takes a contented puff of their cigarette, idly glancing once more at the device which has contributed so significantly to their short-term happiness. A pause. “Whoa now cowboy, this is a pink lighter. What’re you doing with a pink lighter?” I shrug nonchalantly; the redundancy of the conversation is almost too much to bear. I’m gratified with a confused look, followed by the insinuations that everybody thinks of but only drunks have the stupidity to say: “Pink huh…gay.” I shake my head vehemently (not that there’s anything wrong with that), snatch the lighter and leave the pseudo-conversation with my parting words of shtick-wisdom: “Nobody steals a pink lighter.”

It’s true. In a social scene where lighters routinely hitchhike their way from owner to owner, mysteriously vanishing only to appear in a friend’s possession a few weeks later, only the pink lighter is immune. Nobody wants it because of the colour’s feminine associations, and a pink lighter’s rarity makes it easy to track in a crowd. Very rarely will one be idly slipped into a pocket and forgotten about – pink is different, and different is noticeable.

This pink lighter, acquired one hazy summer evening from an anonymous figure and affectionately dubbed “Pinky” by friends since, has been with me for months. A subject of consistent casual interest and speculation (“Is it salmon? It looks more like salmon than pink to me…”), Pinky somehow became a staple in my life. I wasn’t freakily obsessed with the lighter, but the unusual oddity of possibly being the only heterosexual male to willingly hold a fluorescent pink device used to set things on fire amused me and was different.

See, it all stems from a desire for individuality and expression. People typically own things that carry some sort of emotional value – Becky still wears an old Dukes of Hazzard watch that she loves because an ex gave it to her, Kat decorates her bag with buttons of punk bands that she likes, and so forth. We are surrounded with objects that have personal meaning to us on some level; a reflection of ourselves.

Without this we’re just life-sized Ken and Barbie dolls, accessorized and equipped with the latest department store fashion and Ikea-depicted lifestyles. In a world of mass produced goods, people are forced to make meaning of our commonplace possessions through memories and unique associations. When something drops into our eager hands that nobody else has, it’s an opportunity to further define and expand the individuality that we present to the world. It’s a chance to distance ourselves from the pack and escape from frightening mundanity.

So when Pinky finally died last weekend, coughing up its last drops of vital fluid in the service of firing a final stranger’s cigarette, I felt a strange sense of loss. It was only a lighter, but that little tube of pink plastic represented something more to me as an icon that separated me from everyone else, however remotely. The lighter received an impromptu burial in the swath of marigolds near Phil’s and I went home, sad because I couldn’t spark any more cigarettes but grinning at the same time because Pinky had given me an opportunity, however brief and unspectacular, to break away from the invisible confines of life in a grey-scaled, nondescript society.

This column ended up inspiring my Pink Lighter play and thus ranks highly in importance in my mind. I think I would like it even if it hadn't spawned anything further though. I invested a particularly large amount of myself in the writing of this one somehow, and I still get nostalgic when I think of that fateful night in October when the original pink lighter was buried amongst the cigarette butts and flowers beside my favourite bar.