My ex-father-in-law gave me a cigarette lighter hand-made from artillery shells by a relative in WWI when he was in Europe.

I just unscrewed the cap and noticed a bunch of string/wick inside it. Using a paper clip, I removed the 2 to 3-inch piece of wick from inside the lighter.

I laid the wick on my computer desk and just stared at it (seriously). My hands were probably the first hands to touch that material since the lighter was made in France in 1917. Oh the places that string has "seen."

Seriously, I am amazed by a piece of wick - and I'm not stoned.

-EJ