pressreturn

Just imagine for a minute sitting on a bench in a park, fast food brown bag on your lap – quietly eating your lunch. The birds are singing, the air is warm, there’s a slight breeze – thirty minutes until you need to be back at the office – life is good.

Now imagine the same scene, but being bothered by every fifth passer-by with “Can I bum a fry, dude?” or “‘Scuse me. ‘Scuse meee. ‘Scuuuuuse me!!! Hey – yeah, can I buy a fry off you?”

It just wouldn’t happen, would it? Nobody bums fries. If you really want fries, you go and buy some, right? Even if you don’t want the whole box of them – maybe you want just a few fries. Admittedly, it’s probably acceptable for a girlfriend/wife to just take a guy’s fries without asking – every girl knows that fries that she didn’t order don’t have any calories in them.

But in the world of the smoker, this is a constant annoyance. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world – I noticed this on a daily basis. I could be walking down the street, standing outside a pub, sitting in a park – someone would come up to me – even cross the street to get to me – in order to ask for a cigarette.

These things aren’t cheap – so why on earth would you just give them away to random people who asked for them? Why can’t they go any buy their own? If you smoke, there’s a price. Daily. $5. Haven’t got $5? Well, no smoking for you.

“No” was my answer. No, no, no. I don’t have the funds to support your addiction as well as mine. And pretty often, these people look genuinely shocked and offended that you said no!

I don’t face this problem any more. Oh, and just for the record – no – you cannot bum a fry. I intend to eat every last one of them.