What I learnt from cheap ashtrays

Quiet life.

Tin can ashtray by a garage. Photograph by author.

There are the stubbers and the lay-flat. The tossers and the architects. The improvisers with a tin can ashtray and the workers at the back of a restaurant with clear glass, dishwasher-proof, perched on a ledge ashtray.

Leaving home or working on the car. The improvised can outside the garage. General rubbish, bits of plastic, barely extinguished cigarette tossed in the can. This is near home and is a mini extension of the kitchen bin — still our tin can.

Different to the ashtrays found on public bins. With their round metal tops, or sandy square boxes. Bus stops and taxi ranks. There’s more variety with a few roll-ups. Smoked to the filter waiting for a ride. No running for the bus. Stubbed out and bent double, force and focus. This is where we wait, and when it’s time to go, we’re going somewhere.

Bus stop bin. Photograph by author.

There’s less variety outside the pizza place. Not all smoked to the end, maybe ’cause the pizza was ready? Or one employee who had to go in to serve? Bit of carpet underlay added.

The bin outside the pizza restaurant. Photograph by author.

The ashtrays at the back of kitchen restaurants are part of a scene. Something plastic to sit on, non-slip mat and cheap back door. Smoking outside the kitchen.

“deals with the real world but at the same time seeks to free itself of it”

John Szarkowski.

Ashtray outside mountain restaurant. Photograph by author.

Then there’s where you ponder. Not what’s at your back, but what’s in front. The world away from work. Laid down in the clear glass.

Small stories and thoughts we leave like cigarette butts. Whether or not we smoke.