Being once again in the thick of a glorious summer, I have a message for my fellow denizens of Capitol Hill:

BUY YOUR OWN FUCKING CIGARETTES. Please? It's getting kind of ridiculous.

See, the thing is, I normally am a rock-solid follower of the Unspoken Code of Smokers. The rules are pretty simple:

1. If a fellow smoker bums a cigarette, give him one without complaint.

Example:

"Dude, can I bum a smoke?"
"Sure."

2. Unless it is your last cigarette, in which case the fellow smoker will immediately withdraw his request.

"Dude, can I bum a smoke?"
(Opening pack) "Oh, shit, sorry, it's my last one."
"Oh, hey, no problem."

3. Failure to withdraw request for last cigarette is the gravest breach of cadging etiquette.

"Dude, can I bum a smoke?"
(Opening pack) "Oh, shit, sorry, it's my last one."
"Oh, wow, thanks."
"Are you deranged? Get the fuck away from me."
"But--can I . . . ?"
(Shivving the cadger with a sharpened screwdriver) "AAAAAHHH!"
(Police arriving.) "Hey! Stop! What are you doing?"
"Sorry, officer, he was bumming my last cigarette."
"Oh, hell. Are you all right? What was he, crazy?"
"I guess."
"Uuuuuuuugh." (Cadger dies.)
"Carry on, citizen. We'll throw this in a dumpster."

I hope my examples clear up how this all works. There's a few other mitigating circumstances, though, all thrown into clear relief today on my walk home from work. It also happens to depend on who is doing the cadging. It's pretty easy, though:

Homeless Man/Woman

Come on, they're homeless. What's a cigarette to you?

Scary Homeless Man/Woman

On the other hand, you're not a superhero. Or if you are, you're the world's weirdest superhero, because you smoke. Which is kind of cool. I'm going to pretend you are now, and I name you LUNG LAD! (Or Lass. Whatever.) You travel our fair city, flying around with a smoke clenched in your jaw, tirelessly fighting crime and nicotine fits, pausing only occasionally to bend over at the waist and wheeze violently, holding one hand up in that "I'll be okay in a second" way.

Homeless Guy Selling Real Change Newspaper

Give him a cigarette, but then feel kind of peevish about it, because you just bought a newspaper to boot, and that was supposed to fill your "I did my one bullshit miniscule bit for the homeless" slot for the day. Then feel really stupid about being such an asshole over a bloody cigarette, for chrissakes.

Horrid Little Fake Homeless Bastards With Irritating Haircuts

Being past 30, I already hate the young, so it's easy to give in to the temptation to tell them to go fuck themselves. This is what I usually do. (Well, in my mind, anyway. I really don't need my obit to contain the phrase "death by skateboard.") Walk on by and also ignore the pleas of "Beer money, beer money." Fuck you, junior. Sell the leather boots.

Later, imagine horrible scenario in which damaged youth was driven from an abusive home and feel absolutely terrible. The next day, feel less terrible when you see the same kid driving a car.

Finally, this is really outside the realm of smoking, but it falls into the whole civic duty thing: I'm talking about those glinty-eyed parasites who stalk around busy corners with clipboards and try and get you to sign their fucking petitions. "I signed this one," you say. "It doesn't matter," they reply, and shove the clipboard at you. "I hate this petition," you say. "It's okay, just sign," they insist. "I'm a Cantonese rebel freedom fighter in this country on a recruiting mission," you say. "Just a quick signature, please."

These people all need to be lit on fire. Sounds like a job for LUNG LAD!

Lung Lad?

Crap. Turns out he's on his last smoke.