The Pleasure of Public Smoking

I often enjoy sauntering down the road smoking a fag. I expect y’all in London don’t saunter overmuch but we Texans are definitely disposed to sauntering, especially when the temperature hits triple digits. It’s the last frontier of freedom for smokers, the one place we can still enjoy a smoke without being legislated into oblivion. Damn, I’m probably tempting the fates by even writing this.

What I loathe is the number of people who, when they see me smoking, come up and ask for a cigarette. People, I do not work to pay for your fags and no, there isn’t such a thing as a spare fag; only the next fag, which I will be smoking myself thank you.

So there I was Sunday evening sitting on a bench at the bus stop enjoying a smoke when a car pulls up to the stop light and someone shouts at me. No, they weren’t in the lane next to the pavement; they were in the middle lane. What did they shout, you ask? Here’s the script.

Youngish girl in car, shouting: Have you got a cigarette?
Me: What?
Youngish girl in car, shouting: Have you got a cigarette?
Me, holding up my freshly lit fag: Why yes I do, thank you.

Words were mumbled from the car, no doubt casting aspersions on my character and lineage but I just smiled and puffed away.