Camille

When we went to pick up Dad, he appeared out of the woods like a giant swampy gorilla, shimmering in the headlights of our yellow Toyota station wagon. He had been missing for three days. We got a phone call during the night, from a marina in McClellanville,which was at least an hour away. We drove in the dark down a dirt road until we spotted him.###
"I anchored on Bird Key," he said, "and when I went back to the boat, it was gone." Somehow the sandy bottom had slipped, and the boat was gone, and my Dad and his thermos were stuck. He survived by eating sea gull eggs and sipping beer from the red thermos he was lucky to have.###

Jim

Hot and cold, life and death, addiction and choice: in dad's life, right up to the end, these were not opposite terms, but more like companions.###At his wake, other words like 'drive' and 'passion' were used as polite stand-ins for 'stubborn' and 'single-minded'. 'Thrifty' would draw an unhappy chuckle more than once; 'troubled' stood up when 'bitter' would not do.###'He got that thermos to save on coffee money at lunch,' mom said, pointing to a photo on a memorial easel. Dad on a job site, a strong man with a hard hat and a cigarette. For a very brief moment I heard the frustration of an older time, when they argued about the cost of cigarettes, and 'cost' was a heavier word. Later he carried gin in it, to save on bar money. By then, the anger between them had long gone cold, had become 'resignation.' Feelings were insulated.###Time, cancer, and alcoholism had left no organs viable for donation, the doctor told us,but there was some use for 'tissue,' This made mom as happy as anything had for a long time, and I left her with David to fill out the forms. I walked down the hospice corridor, just to walk. I came to an open storage closet full of thermos cases with medical stickers and dry-ice tags and priority shipping labels on them.###'Angry' became 'bemused' as I imagined dad's wry smile, and I walked back down the well-lit hall.

Paul

The door closed, not slammed, just a click shut. She walking down the hall. She started down the stairs the sound deminished, then silence. Here I sat at the table, on one of the chairs, we bought the day I added the Marlboro thermos to the bill. She looked at me for a reason, I pointed at the Coleman label, she knew how I felt about Coleman, then she began to laugh as she relized that the song I was humming was from the movie The Jerk, "I'm picking out a themos for you..." Steve Martin's character sang. She let me buy it for her, a useful, joke gift. The thermos sat in the center of the table now, flanked by the sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers. We did use it when the water was off for repairs. The thermos and I were, as of today, her past, she would be walking into the future with him. Suddenly the name of that movie didn't seem so funny.

Michelle

Claudia’s dad gives her a dollar each game she stands on the sidelines of the soccer field. She raises a neon orange flag up each time the ball goes out of bounds, which sounds easy to do to most, but Claudia will tell you differently. She’ll tell you she has to run up and down with them, keep the flag up in the air as long as the ball is out, and sometimes she has to go to her dad and tell him who kicked the ball out of bounds. That’s always hard because Claudia hates playing sides. ###
Today makes the thirtieth game Claudia has helped her father referee, and today marks the day she will earn thirty dollars for her hard work. She put her previously earned dollar bills in her pockets this morning so she could feel what twenty-nine dollars in her pockets felt like. Her pockets bulged, but she didn’t care; she rather liked the lump on either side of her hips. It made her feel more like a woman, like her mother. ###
But when she stands on the sidelines, eying the soccer ball as it goes this way and that, the dollar bills begin to fly out of her pockets. She chases the tumbling bills, and when the ball goes out of bounds, the flag does not go up. Claudia’s father blows his whistle and calls the end of the half. ###
“I need something for my dollar bills,” Claudia says to her father. ###
“Here, take this.” He grabs a big red and white thermos next to an empty lawn chair. It is labeled with a Marlboro logo on the front. It is full of water and ice, and he dumps it out. He shakes it a bit and then hands it to Claudia. ###
“That’ll do,” he says, walking back to the middle of the field. ###
Claudia sits next to the puddle of water and ice, and she slowly puts each dollar bill into the thermos. She closes the lid, traces the Marlboro label on the front with her finger, wondering where she’s seen that word before. Marl-bor-o, she says to herself. And then she remembers: the cardboard packs, no bigger than a deck of cards, next to her mother’s jewelry box; the cartons in the plastic bag that her mother would bring in on grocery day, cartons she isn’t allowed to touch; the small, white, cylindrical sticks, hanging from the corner of her mother’s lips, hanging from her fingertips, just barely hanging on before the ashes come sprinkling down, crumbling to nothing bigger than a thumbnail. Her mother placed the pack in her back pocket the day she stepped into her truck and didn’t return. ###
Claudia takes out one of her dollar bills, rolls it tight, and put it to her lips. She closes her eyes, inhales, feels her lungs fill up with fire, and slowly, slowly exhales. She takes the dollar bill from her mouth and holds it between her index and middle finger, giving it just a tap, tap. ###
She calls to her dad. He jogs over. “Look Dad,” she says. “I’m just like Mom.” ###
“Claudia Jean,” he says. “Don’t ever say that.” ###

joe

Marlboro?

“What do you think of that?” he said pulling the tubular artifact from the shelf.
“It is hideous,” he remarked turning from the object as though it were infected with typhoid.
“Hideous? Don’t you mean that you are, as usual, being intimidated by an inanimate object?”
“No, I don’t mean that at all. Dad is lying in the hospital, kept alive only by scientific ingenuity, and you are suggesting that we place his ashes as requested in an object that represents the cause of his demise?”
“I am suggesting no such thing. Father asked that we find something appropriate, but cheap, to transport his ashes to the Golden Gate Bridge where we are to discretely let him drift into the bay. I can only imagine the winds blowing him on to Alcatraz where he’ll be imprisoned for eternity like a common criminal. This is important stuff whether you recognize the significance or not.”
“You seem, as usual to have missed the point. Dad wanted us to not spend money unnecessary to carry out his wishes. He hated the idea of spending thousands to dispose of what he considers to be little more than organic matter; celery leaves, tomato skins, you know what I mean. He doesn’t plan to inhabit the places his ashes visit; rather he wishes only to be given the opportunity to not take up space in an already overpopulated planet. So he’s dieing of lung cancer. The probability of his dying from lung cancer after smoking three packs of cigarettes a day for forty years should be something you can find most easily on your actuarial tables.”
“And you don’t seem to understand the significance of placing his remains in an article labeled with an advertising message that promotes killing oneself by inhalation of a deadly substance that is not only reprehensible but addictive. It would have been more acceptable had he died of an overdose of some drug which would have been quicker and more humane. He in effect killed himself with rubber bullets, if one considers the time and agony necessary to inhale tars and nicotine’s over years. You don’t see the significance, but I do. It would be like putting the Marlboro logon on his coffin, complete with the silhouette of the Marlboro Man himself on the lid.”
“So we should put him in a coffee can? He did drink coffee you know. Or perhaps pickle jars? He loved pickles, especially in Bloody Marys. When he could still function mentally, he suggested, he didn’t care. You are reading into this vessel a sense of morality that did not exist in his mind. I really don’t think he’d care if we transported him in a shoe box. You have anything against Buster Brown? I know the company doesn’t exist anymore, but I still have the box; full of baseball cards which I might mention are worth a considerable sum.”
“Can we come to some sort of agreement that will make us both feel comfortable and adhere to his wishes?”
“How about this, we put him in Clallam Cards back pack, which he saved for God knows what reason, and recite his favorite line from having watched the episodes with us when we were kids.”
“And what might that be?”
“You don’t remember? I don’t know how you could forget. Listen, remember. “Birdie with the yellow bill, hopped upon my window sill, cocked his shinning eye and said, what’s that on the road, a head?”
“Are you nuts?”

Julie Luekenga

Dr. Mathis peered over his glasses, making notes on his tablet. His client looked normal, except that blasted thermos he insisted on holding. Obviously Thurmond Baxter was suffering from delusions.###
Thurmond hugged the white and red thermos closer, finding comfort in its smooth round shape pressed against his belly and chest. He studied the doctor, one of those tan privileged types that grew up playing tennis and golf at a country club.###
Dr. Mathis sighed. “Can you try letting go of the thermos, Thurmond?” ###
Thurmond cocked an eyebrow. “No.”###
“Why not?”###
Thurmond took a breath. It was always the same every time his Aunt Velma made him see a psychiatrist. What business was it of hers, anyway? She always insisted he wasn’t coping and pleaded with him to see yet another doctor. For the sake of his parents, God rest their souls, he’d relented.###
Thurmond eyed the doctor skeptically. Dr. Mathis would probably just try to give him a pill that he’d flush anyway. “The thermos contains my dreams. People never believe me.”###
Dr. Mathis tapped the pink eraser end of his pencil against the pad. He glanced at the water cooler in the corner. Perhaps a reality confrontation would start to disintegrate the illusions. Walking over to the cooler he popped two paper cups from the dispenser and brought them back. “Why don’t you pour us a cup of dreams, Thurmond?”###
Thurmond hesitated. No doctor had actually asked him to share his dreams before. He poured himself a generous cup and dribbled just a bit into the doctor’s cup, not sure if he could handle more.###
Dr. Mathis felt like he was participating in a child’s tea party. “Look in the cups, Thurmond. What do you see? I don’t see anything. They’re empty.”###
Thurmond felt disappointed. He glanced at the clock; the session was about over. He reached for his cup and took a long drink letting the contents warm his esophagus. He closed his eyes—much better. When he opened them, Marla was standing behind Dr. Mathis. She looked lovely in her tight white sweater and red skirt that hugged her curves perfectly.###
Marla’s brightly painted red lips smiled. She looked at Thurmond and made the universal sign for “crazy”: spinning her pointer finger at her temple, cocking her head towards the doctor.###
“Thurmond, our time is up. We need to spend more time together, twice a week to start.”###
Thurmond looked at Marla. “I agree,” he said.###
Dr. Mathis was surprised by Thurmond’s response. “Excellent.”###
Marla leaned over Dr. Mathis, the tips of her soft breasts almost brushing his shoulder, her platinum blonde hair falling against the doctor’s ear. “You’ve got to stop listening to them and just be with me, darling.”###
“Our goal will be to lessen your dependency on this thermos and help you find other ways to cope with reality, Thurmond.”###
Thurmond pulled the handle up from the thermos feeling its smooth arch against his palm. “You’re absolutely right,” he said, staring into Marla’s blue eyes.###
Marla stood up and walked between the doctor and Thurmond. “Let’s go, Thurmond. Promise me you’ll stay with me this time,” she pleaded.###
“Please stop on the way out and make another appointment with the receptionist,” Dr. Mathis concluded the session.###
How could he have thought he could resist her? Why did he bother trying? “I will,” Thurmond told her with conviction.###
Dr. Mathis watched his client head out the door. Perhaps they’d made more progress than he’d realized. Thurmond really seemed to be coming around. Maybe the reality confrontation had been a break through.###
This could be a ground-breaking case for him—a write up in a professional journal even. Smiling, he picked up the empty cup and toasted himself: Here’s to you, Dr. Mathis and your career, cheers. He lifted the empty cup to his lips pretending to take a sip before laughing and crushing it in his hand.###
Dr. Mathis leaned back in the leather chair and closed his eyes, letting his thoughts wander: He was seated at a desk in front of chairs filled with esteemed colleagues all eagerly taking notes as he explained how he cured his client of his illusions with a new reality confrontation theory he had developed and implemented. They asked him questions, seeking his expertise. Of course, he was happy to share with them, but he insisted, as he held up his recently published best seller, it was all in here.

Jim

February 29, 1960###
Dear Bobby,###
Happy birthday. 10 years old! Now you have two numbers. I got one of those new pennies in my change and was going to save it to you, but I must have used it. Sorry.###
New York City is certainly a big and busy place. My feet are killing me, but I finally found a birthday gift for you, this thermos. I hope you will love it. Perhaps you can use it on camping trips with the Scouts. You say the kids joke about Mr. Oswald wearing a cowboy hat so I think he would like something with the Marlboro sign on it.###
Love,###
Nana###
P.S. Pop pop’s treatments are going well and Dr. Peregrine says his appetite will return.###

Erin

I’ll never get rid of that red Marlboro thermos.#
Joey wanted to throw it away or feed it to Spot, but I wouldn’t let him…#
Dad and I went camping for the first time ever. We packed hotdogs, rolls, marshmallows, matches, blankets, warm clothes, a tent, and of course the thermos. It was winter, but it had been warm and sunny all week and the man with the very botoxed face on Channel 5 said it wouldn’t get cold. We packed light, expecting to have some decent weather. We were wrong. #
“See you tomorrow, Joe.” Dad said to Joey. “We’re just spending one night up in the woods, so we only left you one box of dinosaur mac and cheese.” Joey blushed and took out one headphone and said, “For the tenth time, I got it. Go have fun with whatever kind of dinosaurs live in those woods. Dad and I zipped up our bags and threw them over our shoulders. We walked to the woods we were going camping in since they were just a block away, and we put up our tent. #
“How about a hike before it gets dark?” Dad asked. #
“Sure.” I answered. For an hour or two, we wandered through the woods scaring away bashful animals and joking around. “We should head back to the tent. I’m hungry.”#
“Ok, Dan.” The two of us dragged some sticks over to the patch of land and struck a match. Dad pulled out the hotdogs and rolls, and we cooked them over the fire, talking and laughing. When it got dark, we shared some scary stories and roasted our marshmallows. Then, we crawled into the tent and went to sleep. #
And it got cold. #
I woke up to 24 inches of snow surrounding the tent. “Dad, wake up!” I yelled louder than SpongeBob’s alarm clock and nudged his shoulders again and again. He groggily looked outside of the tent. “Hmm. They don’t teach you this in Boy Scouts”, he grumbled and looked around the tent. He picked up the red Marlboro thermos, put one finger into the untouched hot chocolate, and put his finger into it.#
“Still pretty hot. Pack up all the stuff. We’ll have breakfast at home and I’ll get started”, he instructed.#
“What are you doing with that thermos? You know how to get us out of here?” I was so curious I may as well have been a young monkey, and Dad might have been the man with the enormous yellow hat. #
“Don’t worry. I have it under control. Just get everything together”, he said in a relaxed voice.#
So I gathered everything we brought into the woods, occasionally opening the flap to see what Dad was up to. When I finished, I stepped out of the tent and there was a narrow path where the snow had somehow melted.#
Dad pointed to the thermos and nodded at me with a mock serious expression on his face. He continued to melt the snow with the hot chocolate from the red Marlboro thermos!#

Jean

I’d swear that’s my brother Greg’s thermos, but I guess there were a million, so who can say for sure. It sure looks like the one I bought him for a joke back in the late 70s. I smoked Marlboros—still do. Greg smoked Winstons. He used to fill that thermos with coffee when we were working construction, back in one of Wyoming’s boom times, when we were pretty sure we could make a go of it. We didn’t say it out loud, but we wanted to please the old man--probably why we went into construction. It was close enough to architecture, what he for a living, but just enough different to piss him off. He always thought contractors were low rent architects.###I slid into bad habits back then. Followed some friends to Seattle and got hooked on smack. Greg took time off from the business to help me quit. Climbed into his old F150 and drove straight from Wyoming and stayed with me during the worst of it. Greg and I drank coffee from that thermos, waiting it out. When I got so I could get through the day without feeling like I wanted to die, we headed back to Cheyenne.###Greg pretty much willed me to live. He kept talking about the future. What we could do with the business. He really wanted to impress the old man. But here’s the thing. Greg had this love affair with death. He courted it with more fire than any woman I ever saw him with, even the mother of his kids. That thermos? He started filling it with more whisky than coffee. The economy tanked, we lost the business. Greg lost his wife and kids too. And the old man died. After that there wasn’t much that kept Greg from his dance with death. I always thought he’d swerve his truck into a car on a two lane highway, taking him and some other poor schmuck out in one bad decision. And then, when he was living on the street in Denver, that he’d die in a drunken knife fight. But he died in Cheyenne in the rental our mom let him live in. Died of drink. Found in his own blood. When I went to clean out the place afterwards, I saw the notes he’d stuck on his bathroom mirror—the ones with 12 step sayings he handwrote in small letters. I guess he hoped they’d keep him going. It made me ashamed. I couldn’t save him like he’d saved me. I saw the thermos on his table. I expected it to smell like whisky, but it didn’t. It didn’t smell like anything.

Conrad

“Have you ever dreamt you were awake?” She lifts her head for a moment, taking a long drag from her cigarette before continuing. “…I mean, like, you’re awake in this dream, right? But as soon as you realize you’re awake, you fall asleep.” Another long drag. “So you begin to dream within your dream… but it’s not at all like you’re dreaming. You watch yourself sleeping… dreaming, until you wake up.” Finishing her sentence, she jams the butt into the dirt, watching the last bellows of smoke disperse in the breeze. She pulls another cigarette from behind her ear and places the filter between her lips. “Light?” ### “Sure” He fishes through his pockets for a second, pulling out a forest green lighter. ### “Thanks” ###
“No problem… You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream like that… I haven’t really been dreaming that much lately. Or maybe I have…and I just can’t recall them in the morning. Sometimes it’s like trying to make out a faint shadow on a dark wall” His legs slowly extend and he falls abruptly onto his back. “It’s so warm. Too warm.” ### “I like it. I can’t remember the last time it’s been this nice out.” She inhales and exhales, a plume of smoke trickles from her nostrils.
“These cigarettes taste awful.” ### “They smell nice. Pass me the thermos.” He reaches across her chest before she can respond. Lifting the open jug to his mouth, he takes a couple short gulps. Some of the liquid escapes his lips and cascades onto his shirt.
“It better not rain tomorrow." ### “I don’t think it’s supposed to, but in this city you never know. Hey, are there anymore smokes in the pack?” Her brow furrowed, she reaches for her pack. Three left. She pulls out another one. “I think I’m pregnant.” ### “Then you better stop smoking.”

Ed

When I was ten years old my best friend was the Marlboro Man. Not the real Marlboro Man, mind you, but an old hobo who hung out in a vacant lot I passed by every day while walking home from school. He’d sit there chain-smoking and drinking what I supposed was coffee out of a thermos emblazoned with the familiar red, black and white of the Marlboro pack. He always said hello, but I always just kept walking. Even though it was 1968 and a kid could still roam around free-range after school, we were still advised about the stranger danger. One day I figured I’d seen him so many times that he no longer qualified as a stranger, so I stopped to talk.
###
He told me lots of stories, including that he had gone to Vietnam in 1961. I was an oddly precocious kid who read a lot, so I knew there were no Americans in Vietnam in 1961. But he told me there were and that I should look it up again in five or ten years when the "truth" finally comes out. One day he told me he had learned how to size up a man within five seconds of looking him in the eye. He said, “It’s a matter of life or death; you gotta know if he’s gonna help you or doesn’t give a s--- or is gonna f--- you over.” I had never heard an adult use either of those words without apologizing, let alone both in one sentence (except for my mother, that is).
###
One day I asked him about the thermos. I had seen Gemini astronauts, the Monkees, the Man From U.N.C.L.E. and all kinds of stuff on thermoses, but never a cigarette brand. He told me he sent in box tops to get it, that it was the only thing he got from smoking cigarettes other than emphysema. I said I had read about that, but he stopped me before I could tell him what I knew. All he said was, “If you like the thermos, you can have it when I check out.”
###
One day later that summer, I walked by the lot. He wasn’t there, and I never saw him again.
###
The Marlboro Man taught me lots of things that they wouldn’t teach us in school, and over the course of my life I’ve found that every darned thing he told me was true. However, I always doubted his claims about Vietnam. I finally looked it up and confirmed that, officially, there were no Americans in Vietnam in 1961. However, there was a contingent of covert CIA operatives there at that time, so maybe the Marlboro Man was telling the truth after all.
###
I don’t know if the emphysema got him, or the CIA, or if Scotty beamed him up back to wherever he came from, but I do know that I wouldn’t be the man I am today without hearing the stories he told me. I also know that it wasn’t coffee in that thermos he was drinking. To this day, whenever I take it down from the shelf, it still carries with it a bit of the aroma of cheap whiskey. It takes me back to when I was ten years old and my best friend was the Marlboro Man.

Emma

I was like a puppy transfixed on the remains of a chicken bone still dripping from dinner’s grease.
As he walked, my eyes locked on the teeniest details: the slight glisten of the hair on his forearms, tanned and strong. The space between his thigh and barely there butt that winked at me every time he took another step. But mostly, his hands. The way his boyish fingers curled around the handle of that old school red and white Marlboro thermos, a “gem,” he said he’d discovered while cleaning out his dad’s garage. ####

I had laughed. Why would a clunky old thing like that, with probable cobwebs inside, be something to get excited about? ####

And yet, here we were. ####

It hadn’t taken much convincing for me to join him on this glorious summer morning. “Wake up. Let’s have a day. We need to put this thermos to use,” was all he had said. I rolled my eyes but proceeded to get dressed, my mind in a woozy haze. More and more these days, that stirring inside my stomach appeared every time I talked to him, both intoxicating and terrifying. ####

We’d met only two months before. He was a local, I a student. He was younger, intriguing, a beautiful baby face with the wisdom of an old man. And I was crazy about him. ####

He looked back at me and smiled in the sunlight. We’d come upon a grassy rock patch by the water. He set down the blanket and beckoned me over. I looked into his muddy brown eyes, like melted chocolate. I wanted to savor this moment, to drink him in. ####

The heat increased, and I finally made some cutting remark about utilizing Mr. Marlboro. He was amused, of course; I, who had undermined this silly old thermos, and I, who now demanded its use. “In a minute, “ he whispered, a mischievous smirk on his face. I had presumed that it carried lemonade or iced tea, some kind of refreshment complimentary to a summer day picnic. ####

But alas, no. Of course it hadn’t. Of course he pulled two water bottles out of his bag just as he opened the thermos. It was empty inside but a single rose and a letter. My heart twinged a little. He had always been sweet, but up until this moment, I had nothing tangible as a souvenir to his existence. He pulled out the rose and tickled my nose with its petals, teasing. He left me to read the letter. It was an ode and a promise from him to me. The sweetest words I had ever seen that were now mine on paper, forever. ####

I will never forget the thermos’s transformation from banal to beautiful that day—how something so inanimate could at once be so intimate. ####

Sometimes, in a quiet moment, I open it up just to make sure the treasures are still there. And they are. Of course.####

I will never forget that summer with the magical boy who carried his love for me in a beat up Marlboro thermos.

Gary

“Gimme that thing,” she said, as she grabbed its handle out of my hand and flung it sideways, spinning, outward toward the sea. I watched it bobble, perhaps three times, like a fisherman’s float, before it was born away by one wave, and then another and another, until it fell over the horizon.
###”Now what?” I asked. “What was that about?”
###”About? It was about the fact that I hate you and the fact that we are going to die out here and the fact that your little plan of three drops of water each per day is not going to save us, okay, Tom Sawyer?”
###”Has it occurred to you that now we have no water?”
###”I hope you die first”, she said. “I hope you die today.”
###As was my plan, I remained calm. “You don’t mean that,” I said. “Help will come. We will make it past this. It rained. There was a storm. People know we’re not where we’re supposed to be. They are looking for us.”
###”Looking for our corpses. God. Shit goddam.”
###The sea was a mirrored reflection of heat in every direction and the sky was a reflection of the sea. All the world I knew at the point was silver and white. The thermos had been our last holdout of civility, a jug of iced tea someone’s mother had begged us to take along at the last minute. In retrospect, I should have thrown her overboard as soon as I saw the situation was hopeless, a mercy killing. Anything would have been better than what she had now become, this sea mammal in search of carrion.
###I had no misconceptions: she had plans to dissect and eat me at her earliest convenience.
###
###
Of course we laugh about it now. We drink champagne on our marriage anniversaries from the the thermos with the absurd logo that led our rescuers to our little boat; and we tell our children the funny story about the spring-break afternoon Mommy tried to eat Daddy.

Chris

I'm late. ###
###
I have my bag lunch, my instrument, my Thermos "bought" with Marlboro miles filled with nice water. Jeff, my sister's boyfriend thinks it makes me look like a cool kid. No one is fooled. He’s saving up for a tent. You can even get a jet ski if you smoke enough, though you won’t be much good on a jet ski after that many packs. ###
###
Brian the drum instructor says the punishment for being late is running a lap.###
###
Big boned, or just fat, this will not be easy. Wearing a black t-shirt in this morning sun will not help. Everyone thinks I'm goth. I’m not really; just stupid. I convinced myself that black is slimming, and the tuaregs wear black in the Sahara. I'm just marching in circles around this dusty football field.###
###
The real punishment for being late is choosing someone to run for you. Brian calls me an idiot for being late and for keeping him waiting now. “Just fucking choose.”###
###
Sis dropped me off. She was late to pick me up, drove like a maniac, and then stopped for gas. She reeked of cigarettes. Usually the smell reminds me of my uncles, but I felt like I was going to be sick. We pulled up to the high school late as ever. “Mom’s picking you up.”###
###
I point out a girl for some reason, a flute player, to run my lap for me and hang my head in line. I don’t ever want to be late again, or ever come back. I don’t want to march around like a soldier all day. It’s 8 am on my first day of band camp, and I count four hours until I can drink out of that thermos. By then the cool ice water will hot from the sun and taste like plastic.

Alice

I was listening to the significant object story while taking my daughter back to school after spring break. When you mentioned that you had picked a Marlboro thermos I thought it couldn't be the same one we have stored away in a cabinet. But it is. We got it the summer of 1991 or '92. My husband was working summers at a feedstore outside Williamsburg, VA while attending the College of William and Mary. The thermos was some sort of premium for buying cigarettes. The store owner gave one to my husband. We don't use it very much, but it is a good thermos.

Nicole

“I’m telling you,” he said, as I unscrewed the cap to the thermos and peered in. “If they offered you a million dollars, you would star in a commercial for Marlboro cigarettes.”###
I took a tentative sip then recoiled. The whiskey was a skim across the top of the syrupy iced tea. I restored the plastic top, tightened it, then shook. “You truly don’t know me,” I said.###
He hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me down next to him on the log. I would never admit that it felt good to be pressed up against him, if only for the body heat. When he let go, I was twice as cold. Sitting beside a lake in March certainly wasn’t my idea of a good time. It wasn’t even beautiful out in Ramapo Reservation today; the sky was white.###
“You’re here and you’re in totally inappropriate shoes,” he said. “When I called you this morning I could have placed a million dollar bet on those two facts.” He took a swig from the thermos I passed him, muttering, “And she says I don’t know her.”###
A whirl of birds expanded and contracted overhead. I imagined throwing a net over them and watching it pulse. “I should have listened to my inner voice saying, ‘stay in bed!’” I said. “I had my reservations.”###
“Is that word play?” he asked. “Your reservations? Because we’re on one? Is that what they taught you at your fancy college?”###
I grabbed the thermos. The drink tasted better now that it was mixed. “Are you playing the townie high school boyfriend character?” I asked. “Your college was just as fancy as mine—it just wasn’t as good.”###
“There aren’t actually any Indians here, right?” he asked, suddenly looking around at the tall, leafless trees, the subtle ripple across the slate-dull lake. “I mean, it’s New Jersey.”###
My back ached from sitting up so straight and strange on the log, all my muscle taut to keep from rolling off. He took the thermos and I watched the vibrations in his throat as he swallowed. He hung his head when he was finished drinking, leaning over so it lolled between his knees. He was balding on top, his hair there soft and thin like a child’s.###
I reached over and traced the red Marlboro logo on the thermos with my finger, traced around the rectangle, traced down to his hand, traced the fingernail on his pointer finger. It was cleaner than any boy’s fingernail had a right to be. “This was your dad’s, huh?” I asked. “I remember him coming in with it, that time his fishing trip got rained out and he caught us in your basement.”###
He twists his head to the side, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “He yelled, ‘cool down!’ and threw the water at us.”###
“I wanted to die,” I said, then covered my mouth.###
But he just shook his head. “No you didn’t,” he said, squeezing me to his side. “Even then we knew it was funny.”

Guy

###The body was a gelatinous mass stuck to the wall of the walk-in closet. A Motley Crew album cover with white lines of powder waiting to be snorted lay on the floor before it. It all was a stinking mess and the neighbors were noticing something funny. That’s about when the call came.
###Jaybird was dead. The coroner declared it a “death by misadventure.” But was it?
###A few months earlier, Jaybird – the ultimate party animal in his prime – had made some new friends. I didn’t know them, because he was my ex-brother-in-law and we had a falling-out. He broke my sister’s jaw and children’s services had taken my niece into custody for abuse allegations. How he avoided jail is beyond me. He was on my list.
###Jay’s women were dealt a heavy hand and I had heard he was with a new one. A hard one. An alcoholic spit fire felon. Just the thing needed to straighten Jay out – a dose of his own bad medicine.
###In better times, Jay and I did the buddy thing – women, booze, dope, grab ass and one night late he scored some outstanding weed. It stunk to high heaven. Partied-out and wasted he was afraid to drive home with it in his pick-up truck. Cops have a saying, “Out after two, drunk or skunk.”
###So, I loaned him my Marlboro cooler to put it in so the police could not smell it if he was stopped on his way home. The cooler was an airtight squat little red and white keg that looked like the Marlboro Man after his last cancerous puff and the scourge of peripheral arterial disease – meaning no arms and no legs. The ten gallon cowboy hat was replaced with a screw-on lid and just the strap and torso remained. The Marlboro slogan acting as a face center stage like a third eye was vintage. A pop-up snout was imbedded on top like a slicked-down cowlick. One tight lipped little dude. I bought it with cigarette pack coupons. I had traded my health for it!
###Off he went with his booty, happy as a clam.
###The new woman kept Jay to herself and I did not see him for months. There was some talk that he had put her in the hospital.
###Now that he was dead, I decided to drive over to the scene and look around to get some macabre sense of closure. When I got to his apartment complex nook it looked the same, dismal and dark, except for the bright yellow police tape. His black pick-up truck was still in the parking lot and lo there in the bed like a red and white time capsule was the cooler amongst his tools and discarded trash. I grabbed the cooler.
###A couple days later I went to clean it out and unscrewed the lid. Inside was a hand with HATE tattooed across the knuckles. It was preserved nicely – still a little flexible but scabrous. Too bad Jaybird didn’t use the hand with LOVE on it more.
###I threw the cooler in the river and the last I saw it was bobbing merrily along with the current.
###I guess Jaybird met his perfect match.
### I really do miss that cooler. Vintage!

Sarah

Dear Wes,
###
I hope this finds you in good spirits. I was cleaning out the garage last weekend and came across the enclosed Thermos. I started to throw it out but, on second thought, decided you might enjoy having it on account of its interesting history.
###
1979 was the second or third time your Uncle Jeb decided to give up drinking. By all appearances, things were going well: he and your Aunt Betsey were on decent terms, he’d started working regular shifts at the store again, and he saved up enough money to rent out the apartment above Dave Horning’s garage. His old drinking buddy Hal Blankenship – who had by that time found Christ and given up the bottle for good – was ecstatic, and went to great lengths to encourage him to keep it up. It was Hal who suggested the camping trip at Old Crag to celebrate Jeb’s newfound sobriety.
###
Your uncle still had a big duffle from his army days, but he borrowed a sleeping bag from your Uncle Paul and the Marlboro Thermos from your dad. Your dad wasn’t particularly fond of the jug: he’d saved the coupons from his cigarettes for nearly a year to buy a Marlboro denim jacket, only to discover they’d given them all away two weeks before he sent in his order. They sent him the Thermos and a free carton of cigarettes as a concession, but it was a raw deal to his thinking.
###
Jeb and Hal packed their gear into Hal’s pickup one Friday afternoon, drove out to the trail head off 55 West, and headed into the hills. By all accounts, the first day of their trip was great – cool weather and an easy hike followed by a relaxed fireside dinner. The next morning, Hal was up with the sun, but your Uncle Jeb languished in the tent until well past eight. When Hal went to wake him, he smelled the whiskey on his breath and realized your uncle had been sneaking nips from the Marlboro Thermos all evening. Hal was livid. He flung the half-empty Thermos down the hill into the thicket by Mathers Creek. Still drunk, Jeb charged down the hill in pursuit of the remaining booze. Hal packed up his half of the gear and left, leaving your uncle behind.
###
Jeb wasn't seen for three days but, honestly, no one had much noticed in light of all the hullabaloo around the Crissy Hatcher kidnapping. Poor girl went hiking alone along Mathers Creek, was knocked over the head, and came to in a cabin she didn't recognize. Mayor Hatcher paid up right away when he got the ransom call and Crissy was, thankfully, set free by the side of 55 West just three days after the whole episode began. Partially blindfolded for the duration of her ordeal, the only distinguishing detail Crissy could recall from the cabin was the presence of a Marlboro-branded Thermos.
###
Mayor Hatcher made it known that he'd pay good money for clues related to the kidnapping. When Hal heard about the Thermos, he naturally decided to get in touch. Sherriff White picked up your Uncle for questioning shortly thereafter. Given that Jeb had been in the same vicinity, unaccounted for, at the exact time of the kidnapping, things didn't look good. Still, your uncle insisted he was innocent and I believed him. Jeb claimed his Thermos was still lost somewhere in the thicket where Hal had flung it, so your father and I set out to find it. After three hours of searching, your father tripped over the damn thing and it was located at long last.
###
When we took the Thermos back to the station, Hal confirmed that he'd slung it into the woods and Sherriff White let Jeb go. A quick call to Marlboro revealed that one other Martinsburg County resident had ordered the same Thermos: Crissy Hatcher's ex-boyfriend. The boyfriend was eventually tried and convicted. Meanwhile, Jeb was scared straight by the whole ordeal. He sobered up again right away and started working for the railroad shortly thereafter.
###
I didn’t actually realize that the Thermos was still around until last weekend. I suppose we must have used it at some point in the intervening years, but I honestly don’t recall. I thought it might lift your spirits to have the Thermos that came between your Uncle Jeb and eight years upstate. Don't worry - I'm sure you'll find your missing hunting knife soon and Sherriff White will realize that he has, once again, been barking up the wrong tree. Never lose faith.
###
All my love,
Mama

mollie

"I don't need matches," Alice says as she puts the change into her red nylon Marlboro wallet and swipes the box of Marlboro reds from the dusty bodega counter. The bells on the door shake behind her as she leaves, declaring her victory. Two steps from the store, she tears off the plastic wrap and carefully removes the proof of purchase from the side of the cigarette box, slipping it into her coat pocket. At the end of the block she smiles and hands the cigarettes to an expectant homeless man and turns onto her street. Alice quit smoking when her father died of lung cancer three years ago.
###
Alice digs in her bag for her keys, finally pulling them out by the soft plastic Marlboro logo keychain. She opens the front door of her building and fingers the keychain as she walks up the three flights of stairs, two steps at a time. She opens the door with a push to the smell of her roommate's weekly stew. She yells “Hey!” through her roommate's door, and her roommate returns the greeting. She walks to her room and closes the door. She picks up a shoebox labeled “P.O.P.” on the ground and sits down with it softly on her bed. Alice opens the box. It is filled with stacks of Marlboro proofs of purchase bound by rubber bands. She counts the nineteen stacks of ten, and then the nine spare ones at the bottom of the box. She pulls the new one from her coat pocket and binds it with the other nine. “Two hundred,” Alice says. Alice grabs her Marlboro rewards catalog from her desk and turns to the page titled “200 Point Rewards.”
###
There are fifteen rewards shown on the two-page spread. Marlboro toothbrush with holder. Marlboro baseball cap. Marlboro lighter 5-pack. Marlboro flashlight. Marlboro tote bag. Marlboro thermos. Marlboro horse and cowboy figurine. Marlboro checkers set. Marlboro yo-yo. Marlboro stationary. Marlboro white t-shirt with pocket. Marlboro pennant. Marlboro pencil set. Marlboro book light. Marlboro socks 2-pack. Her excited eyes dart from image to image. She fills out a card from the catalog and stuffs her stacks into a manilla envelope.
###
Ten days later she returns home from work to find a cardboard box in front of her apartment door. Inside her room, she rips through the packaging like a dog with an unattended box of Milkbones. Inside she finds her reward: a large red and white thermos with a handle. The Marlboro logo on the top looks fresh, almost wet. Alice begins to cry.
###
The next morning, Alice fills her thermos to the brim with her roommate's leftover stew. She stops in the bodega on her walk to work. “Can I have two packs of Marlboro reds, please?”
###
Note: Can you please disregard my first submission? This is a further edited version.

Geoffrey

“Marlboro Thermos, Marlboro Thermos – what a sweet, pretty girl.“ ###
“What are you mumbling about, Grandpa?” ###
“Don’t pay attention to him. He’s going off again. Just eat up and finish your dinner.” ###
“Marlboro Thermos, Marlboro Thermos. Those big, dark eyes….” ###
“But, Grandma, who’s Marlboro Thermos? Some old flame?” ###
“Nothing of the kind. Your grandfather’s memory is playing tricks on him. He means Marlo Thomas. She was a pretty actress who starred in an old weekly TV series about a well-meaning nun who was always getting into trouble.” ###
“Sounds a bit like Mother.” ###
“Yes, except your mother never wore a bright red habit. Anyway, your grandfather and I loved the show and were very sad when it was cancelled after only two or three seasons. You just don’t find shows like that on TV any more; it was entertaining in a wholesome and innocent way you just don’t see today. Honestly, people used to behave themselves on TV in those days.” ###
“But why Marlboro Thermos? Why?” ###
“Why’s Grandpa’s so obsessed with this lady?” ###
“Hard to say. When you get old, it’s the old memories you want to hold on to. Then again, maybe he saw red.” ###
“What do you mean, as in a bull seeing danger?” ###
“Sort of. You see, Marlo’s bright red habit, on and off the screen, was a warning sign. But one that meant nothing to her, only to the people around her, only to the people who cared about her.” ###
“You mean even in her private life she wore a bright red habit?” ###
“In a matter of speaking. But that bright red habit was not the garb worn by a nun but a horrible smoking habit that she developed when she left acting to become a social activist. That habit didn’t just get her into trouble; it killed her and it devastated her family.” ###
“Really?” ###
“My Marlboro Thermos!” ###
“It’s okay, Grandpa. It’s okay.” ###
“Your grandfather used to find Marlo’s throaty voice very attractive. But by the time she was in her early thirties, her voice had become permanently hoarse and congested. And by the time she was in her late thirties she could no longer breathe without mechanical assistance. When he was shown pictures of her final days on an iron lung he broke down into tears. It was as though he were mourning his own daughter.” ###
“Marlboro Thermos. Poor Phil.“ ###
“Who’s Phil?” ###
“Phil Donoghue is a famous former talk show host who was Marlo’s husband and is the father of her children. You couldn’t get him to stop talking. Now he won’t say a word to anyone. They were so different and fought all the time, but he adored her. They say the daughter looks a lot like her mother.” ###
“Grandma, why do cigarette companies put their logos on thermoses? Isn’t it a little like saying, Drink this poison?” ###
“Marlboro, my darling daughter, Marlboro!“