"Things are hard all over..."

The other day I walked into a tobacco shop to buy my two roommates some tobacco for the cigarettes they roll. I was trying to find some new awesome flavored/style of tobacco*. Turns out this store only had very generic stuff. They did have tobacco in a can which I thought was gross. I guess maybe if you grewup in the 1930s or on military rations that would appeal to you...


(*I do the same thing for my beer drinking friends. My friends have beers that they like and they only drink those. I just figure with so many out there, it is my responsibility to introduce my friends to flavors or kinds that they may not have tried on their own free will.)



Anyways, the more interesting part of this story is the tobacco store clerk. When I came in he was talking to somebody about hard times. So I'm picking out tobacco and I go to buy it and we start a dialogue.



TSC: "Man, a lot of people are doing what you're doing right now."
Me: "Yeah, I bet. I saw that a carton of Marlboro cigarettes is close to $50.
TSC: "More and more people are rolling their own like you."

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I didn't roll cigarettes or smoke them. He told me how he was single because his wife had left him awhile ago, and he was now paying all the bills that it had taken two people to pay before. I told him how a lot of teachers are scared of losing their jobs right now, a profession I got into because I never thought I'd have to worry about job security. I left and told him to "hang in there".

It was strange for a stranger to just open up to me, but I never mind listening. It just made me think about how PEOPLE are being affected all over in every aspect of life, even down to our addictions in this recession prone economy.