He asked you for a smoke. You ignored him, cut in front of him and flicked your two-drag smoke to the street before your entered the store. You knew he would pick it up. He did. You both carried on with your day. It’s likely you didn’t give it a second thought. he likely felt a loss of self-respect. I wanted to flick you to the street and stomp you out. —Enjoy your ass voice as you age
This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2014.
If you really cared about Smelly the Bum, you’d have stomped on the smoke first and saved him from himself. Your ability to avoid the struggle is the mark of your privilege.
If you can’t afford to smoke, then why smoke?
If you’re poor and can’t afford to smoke, the likelihood of you picking up a street-butt is great. And if you’re poor and can’t afford to smoke, you probably have a loss of self-worth as it is. Picking up a 2-drag smoke off the street is a bonus.
I suspect OB, you were born with a silver cigarette in your mouth…
As a non-smoker, you have no idea the amount of times smokers get asked for ‘an extra’ smoke. Fucking annoying.
I haven’t come across a pack yet that had an extra smoke in it.
AN ASS VOICE?
What is an ass voice? Is it connected in any way with the injunction, “Don’t talk out of your ass”? Does an ass voice change as one ages? In what manner? Write back soon.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I imagine ass voice comes from too much ass to mouth, rots out the voicebox. Similar to whiskey voice. There’s a guy who’s always bumming smokes at the ferry terminal, I see him there every time, but when you’re not lookin’ he’s throwin back 5 dollar iced cappuccinos. If peoples can’t afford smokes, dey needs to quit. Shits expensive! But at the same time, flicking a butt at someone is pretty demoralizing. What a shitty addiction that turns people into butt-smoking lepers of society. Eriebody deserves to be treated with dignity, but sometimes dats hard when ya done had a bad day.
I think they’d both get “ass voice” together as they age.
But seriously, I think it would’ve been ignorant had the person asked for change only to have it thrown on the ground for him to pick up. Really though, what should the person have done then…. Not gone into the store and keep the butt until well outside of the view of the person who wanted a free smoke?
There’s a thing called agressive pan-handling, well there’s also aggressive smoke bumming.