12th District, Budapest, Királyhágó Street… that’s where I spent my childhood and later my teenage years.
I lived in a four-story building. Below us on the third floor was a Japanese advertising agency, set up for gift and commercial photography. They used product samples that, after the shoot, ended up in the trash.
Shame or not, at 13 or 14 years old, I would rummage through the bins, sneaking around to get my hands on the “opium of the decaying West.” To my credit, it was 1977-78, and back then, all we had was Sopianae (8 Forints) and Amo soap… The Atlantic cigarettes hiding at the bottom of the bins would scent my t-shirts for years after I found them unopened.
Catalogs, perfumes, chocolates, tobacco products, etc… I was poisoned by the scent of Multifilter…
Later, only the ‘100s’, the American ones, could replicate that aroma… I got hooked on them, and well, that lasted for years.
Because as an anxious teenager, I wasn’t just trying to impress myself; I was also aiming to please the crowd by exhaling that smoke. I was shy, but I wanted to conquer…
Among the perfumes, there were about 20–25 trial vials (2-3 ml) of Givenchy Gentlemen Original. I bagged them all, and even 50 years later, thanks to the world wide web, I still order only this fragrance from the original French manufacturer…
We are all branded in one way or another…
And we were truly good friends.
Only 2.50 a pack 
He smoked Munkás (a local cigarette brand), later Symphonia. Freshly washed clothes were already stinking when they came off the drying rack. It was death; I hated it. I never smoked in the apartment. Even now, I don’t smoke this inside either, I go out to the yard.
but we still went to the early Friday morning market for that junk 
