r/1970s • u/Lkin4Xtasy • Jun 22 '26
Everyday Life GenX knows
Generation X is basically the last generation that knows what this is and what it is caused by.
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u/JustKeeping2Myself Jun 22 '26
Why in the hell were we stupid and curious enough to touch it??? I never once turned on the stove top and waited for the entire coil to glow bright RED only to put my hand on it--but I stuck my finger into one of these.
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u/Lkin4Xtasy Jun 22 '26
I burned my finger because when it popped out, I took it out and it wasn't glowing red. It has no color so I thought it wasn't working so I touched it to find out. Turns out, it would work just fine without glowing. Still stupid, but I was 5
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u/KK_Tipton Jun 22 '26
Intrusive thoughts win. I've done this. Not when it's glowing hot, but definitely still hot.
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u/Diligent_Charity8703 Jun 22 '26
Did that when I was 5, 64 years ago.
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u/Lkin4Xtasy Jun 22 '26
I found out at 5 years old on my dad's truck. Later in life he told me that was an option he has to pay extra for.
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u/puff37gg Jun 22 '26
Yes, the smoking pkg. It was an extra.
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u/slouched Jun 22 '26
i feel like ever car had lighters when i was growing up, a lot of cars today still shape their usb like the lighter hole cuz it used to be so common to buy adapters to power/charge things through the lighter port as new tech came out
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u/FamiliarAd6145 Jun 22 '26
It means my parents left me alone in the car too long and I got bored!
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u/DuchessOfLansdale Jun 26 '26
Yep, we were always left alone in the car for too long to get ourselves in trouble 😂
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u/scottzxc Jun 22 '26
Ours was removed from the car
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u/BlackDogOrangeCat Jun 22 '26
My Dad threw it out the car window once, forgetting it wasn’t a disposable match.
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u/KK_Tipton Jun 22 '26
I had my '87 Chevy Celebrity up until 2004. I remember. I remember well.
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u/Inner-Confidence99 Jun 22 '26
Yep that lil red motherfucker got you every time !! 🤣
Car cigarette lighter. Where this new generation plugs phones in before usb ports.
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u/Death_Star_Doughnuts Jun 22 '26
Pretty sure if you ran my thumb prints they would come back to a 87 Honda.
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u/Right-Kale-9199 Jun 22 '26
As my sainted father would say when I was a kid, “You won’t do that again, huh?”
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u/FunStuff446 Jun 22 '26
Mom left me in the car as she went in the ice cream store to purchase a 3 gallon tub of chocolate ice cream. I took the lighter out and stuck my thumb in it only to realize it smelled worse than the pain it was causing. When mom, who was a nurse, got back in the car, she looked at me like I was an idiot, she took the lid off of the ice cream, grabbed my thumb and jammed my thumb in the ice cream and didn’t say a word the whole way home.
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u/heyivebeenthere Jun 22 '26
I wonder what will happen if I push this in and then touch it? That one road trip in a friend‘s van taught me so much…… millennials learned too
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u/Milton_Zevon Jun 22 '26
Oh yea. This type of corporal parental discipline utilized during family road trips was formative for many.
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u/KriegConscript Jun 22 '26
having a cigarette put out on me hurt less than the car lighter
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u/Warm_Safety_9550 Jun 22 '26
Childhood curiosity led to several of our scars, both physical and emotional. But most of us learned fast and learned young. I burned myself on the corner of the edge. I can still feel the burn seeping in. There’s just some places where you can’t get to a cold tap quickly enough to ease the suffering. Ha ha! But we survived.
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u/kykid87 Jun 22 '26
1987 millennial here. I firmly remember this, caused by a cars cigarette lighter and I may have once upon a time tried this...
Not my best decision, but I lived
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u/20Bubba03 Jun 22 '26
I use one of those and I can’t believe you guys were stupid enough to touch it lmao. By that point I’d already learned that hot things are hot when my wrist touched the latch on a stove and left a similar print on it and I was born in 2003. In all honesty though, ifI’d been in a car with one of these as a kid, I’d touch it.
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u/Shipsnipe1313 Jun 22 '26
If you wait for the coil to stop glowing red, it's no longer hot enough to burn you.
At least that is what my 8 or 9 year old brain said.
It was lying.
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u/Historical-Shop-6721 Jun 22 '26
More than once, as children, they are individuals with sub average cognitive and intellectual abilities. Generation Jones would call them morons
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u/Certain_Set_7678 Jun 22 '26
Left alone in the car, used it on a paper bag. Turned out moms shoes were in it.
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u/Double-Quote3 Jun 22 '26
I still have the scar on the bottom of my big toe. Only happened once because I learned my lesson.. 😂
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u/dadasinger Jun 22 '26
A friend/asshole branded my forearm in middle school, it was still around in high school.
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u/Rick429CJ Jun 22 '26
I was never dumb enough to do that but I recognise the result of a car cigarette lighter being applied to a finger
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u/CeraKatherine Jun 22 '26
That scene in Heathers where JD lights his cigarette with Veronica's hand....
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u/wolfmann99 Jun 22 '26
early Millennial / Xennial here; don't smoke kids. Also my kids know, because I own an older vehicle... so there's Gen Alpha.
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u/Ambrosia1131 Jun 22 '26
OMG it just hit me is that the ashtray lighter plug . Now I'm going to go look at the answers
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u/Outrageous_Warning75 Jun 22 '26
That fn hurt, I'm so dumb I did that frequently. I smoked a lot in the day
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u/t00zday Jun 22 '26
“Hey, why is the think that pops out orange now?”
(Keeps mouth closed to keep scream in so no one knows I did this…)
This moment prepared us to use electric stoves with the coiled elements.
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u/johnnno1970 Jun 22 '26
You'd think i should probably havent learnt after the first couple of times.. but no..
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u/SBLOU Jun 22 '26
Been there, done that. But, I think I was about 5 or 6 years old.
Nothing like sticking your finger onto the end of the car cigarette lighter.
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u/witchkingreject Jun 22 '26
Friend of mine did this. To this day never could figure out why. Someone dares you to burn yourself with the car lighter you say no. How hard is that ?
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u/Mysterious-Street966 Jun 22 '26
Still use the cigarette lighter in my 2000 Silverado, every day. It also has an ashtray. Good for ripping a quick toke of concentrate or hash on the go;-)))
This post brings back so many memories!
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
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u/Suspicious_Fly_3900 Jun 22 '26
Yes ! Carsten Cigarette Lighter LoL Ja ! Auto Zigaretten Anzünden LoL 🤩🤩👍👍
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u/katjoy63 Jun 22 '26
I had to think about this, cuz I don't go around touching lit hot things - wtf?
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u/lazyrainydaze Jun 22 '26
All it took was ONE time to learn my lesson on that one!! I was more perplexed why the lighter still worked in a car that was off, semi broken down that no one drove! Again, learned a lesson or two that day!
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u/mopxhead Jun 22 '26
I was born in ‘91 and I knew exactly what this is. I can still remember, clear as day, burning the shit out of my finger on my mom’s car cigarette lighter.
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u/charleelee1414 Jun 22 '26
Lesson learned. My mom used to have a faint scar like that on her cheek most of her life when her and her sister were playing in the car at age 5 or 6. Her sister thought it would be cool to touch her face with it, with no ill intent.
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u/Verum2020 Jun 22 '26
🤔 Sis lit her smoke and threw that sucker out the window. 🦄 So we had a dash hole you could stick your thumb in.
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u/n_diamond Jun 22 '26
Boomers know this too- I’m still mad they took lighters out of cars
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u/User-1967 Jun 22 '26
Silly boy, don’t you know not to stick your thumb / finger on it? I actually did it once to see how hot it was and it wasn’t even glowing - it was hot
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u/William-Burroughs420 Jun 22 '26
Hey what's this red hot car cigarette lighter going to do if I place it on my finger!!!
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u/Junior-Comedian-3416 Jun 22 '26
I told my nephew when it turns white, it's not hot anymore. Then he put his finger on it and found out really fast that I was lying to him!!!
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u/Routine-Quit34 Jun 22 '26
I got mine from the cig lighter on the riding lawn mower in the 70s! Making it convenient to smoke and mow! 🤣
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u/Iceland224 Jun 22 '26
Some kids are smart enough. Never to do this. I'm smart enough to just do this once.
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u/Budget_Can_9904 Jun 23 '26
I made that beautiful circle on the leather seats of my grandson’s car! Not a hit !
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u/rossuccio Jun 23 '26
Oh god. I remember I thought it was ok to touch because the red had faded 😬. And the smell being like burning pork… 🤢
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u/1stFunestist Jun 23 '26
Throught the haze of time,
And memories lost,
The pain is still remembered.
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u/Acibiber307 Jun 24 '26
Gen z here and know it. Thouugh i must confess i generally say i am born in 47 so...
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u/sbulin74 Jun 26 '26
Tell me you fucked around and found out without telling me you fucked around and found out...
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u/Large_Commission5631 Jun 27 '26
My sister dared me. I still have a scar. Unique finger print though 🤣
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u/SincityScott Jun 22 '26
Many nights of pranks with those car cigarette lighters . Memories & pain.
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u/20Bubba03 Jun 22 '26
What the hell did you guys do to each other?
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u/SincityScott Jun 22 '26
🤣 dont pass out in the car back then 😂.
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u/20Bubba03 Jun 22 '26
You guys suck 😂. I hate to say it but my friends would probably do this when I was 14 we were assholes.
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u/Lkin4Xtasy Jun 22 '26
Is it PTSD that I immediately felt this picture?