Smokin' the Morning Drive

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:31:00 -0600

There is a particular type of charger connection that we have in cars and on the boat. On one recent morning, I explained to Ko why we call that the "cigarette adapter."

My current cigarette plug
Talking about it out loud made me feel like I'm from another plant. Ninteenseventyanus. People really used to smoke in their car?

Not only did people smoke, but for decades, the only consumer electronics installed in a vehicle were the radio and the cigarette lighter.

If you're old enough to remember blogs and thus old enough to find yourself here, you can picture the answer to his next question: how did a plug in a car make fire?

I can see the glowing red metal mesh at the end, and I suppose that the plug just pushed car battery current through this metal until it got red hot. At some point, it would pop out automatically like a toaster, and I have no idea how that worked.

I was trying to remember which was my last car with an ash tray, and I can't. It was always a change holder for me, but I also quit spending cash before not having a place for change became an issue for me, so I didn't notice when I no longer had the ash tray. In my current Jeep, I don't even see the dashboard gap where you could add one if you requested it.

How did the adults of the 70s use the teeny tiny ash trays that were in the arm rest on airplanes? It had to be so gross. And imagine having to clean those out after a flight.

🤢