Throwing Pennies at Bums and Hookers is Funny

I don't smoke in the apartment. My girlfriend doesn't smoke, and while she doesn't say much about me smoking, I know that she can't really stand the smell. It doesn't bother me to smoke outside. Actually, it encourages me to smoke less, because the weather sucks, it's a pain in the ass to pause the movie and find my shoes, and, really, smoking indoors has become weird to me. I can't do it anywhere else I go, why should home be any different?

Yet, it never fails. Every single time I step out front on our street level porch to have a coffin nail, I'm assaulted by at least one worthless piece of shit.

"Can I bum a smoke?"

Know why they call it bumming? Because, thats what you are; a bum. Why don't you piss yourself a few times, give up any type of personal hygiene for a month or six, get yourself a coffee can and a cardboard sign explaining your personal plight and work a corner? Maybe you can scrape together enough change to buy your own cigarettes. Or, you could do what I do. I go to work. I earn a paycheck. I buy cigarettes when I want them.

"You got an extra square?"

Nope. Sorry sport, there were only 20 in this pack when I opened 'em. But, hey, give me your name and number, and the first pack I get with 21, I'll call you.

What the fuck is an 'extra' cigarette? Like I bought a pack and decided "Ehhh...I don't think I want that one way in the back..."

Did you mean; do I have a cigarette I am willing to give to you? If you live in my neighborhood, you're probably one of the hundred hoodrats that is so loud as you wander the streets, I frequently have to rewind the movie I'm watching because I couldn't hear what the hell just happened. Will I give you a cigarette? I wouldn't throw a bucket of piss on you if you were on fire.

For those of you thinking that I have no compassion, allow me to set the record straight: I don't. Not a single fucking drop.

First of all, smoking isn't a necessity. Yes, it certainly sucks to suffer the pangs of nicotine withdrawl. But, it isn't going to kill you. If you can't afford to buy your own cigarettes, tough fucking shit. Smoking is a luxury. This is why it gets whacked with the Sin Tax and why you can't buy cigarettes with your food stamps no matter how much you argue with the cashier or insist that the guy that is usually working always lets you do it, as I wait with growing impatience behind you to pay for my shit and go to work.

Secondly, one of the few things my exwife didn't get in the divorce was my pride. It would be a cold day in Hell before I asked a perfect stranger for anything. I have to work up my nerve to borrow twenty bucks off my live-in girlfriend when I've come up short before payday.

I don't understand the mindset that it is acceptable to approach a perfect stranger and ask them to part with anything they have purchased with their hard earned cash. Times is tough in the field for everybody, boss.

Asking someone for a cigarette is a social practice that should be confined to parties, rock concerts, and friends. Asking some to spot you a few bucks is a social practice that should be confined only to friends.

I had a coworker ask me to lend him three bucks until Friday today. Now, I'm normally not adverse to this. I've lent coworkers money before, but they were good friends that I trusted and was confident they would pay me back. But...we don't get paid for another week. How desperate are you that you need $3.00 from me today, and where are you going to get it by Friday to repay me? Is this going to be three bucks I never see again? I'm guessing. And, yeah, it's only $3.00... but that doesn't even cover a gallon of gas these days.

You want to borrow money from me? Let me give you my exwife's number. That bitch gets all my money.

We're supposed to feel sorry for the down trodden and the poor in this country. Why? Hey, don't get a job...get two. Damn right, you can't live off minimum wage. Minimum wage wasn't designed to be lived off of. It was integrated as a supplemental income and to protect minors entering the workforce. You can't live off what McDonalds pays. But, if you work at McDonlads during the day and Burger King at night, you can get by... Sure, it will cut into your crack smoking time, but hey, can't have your cake and eat it too.

Yes, I said it.

The reality that most Americans want to ignore is that the vast majority of the indigent population are either drug addicts or suffer a mental illness and refuse their medications. And, God forbid we force them to take their meds, that would be a violation of their rights. Nevermind your right to enter a business in a populated city without being assaulted by someone that smells like they shat their pants 12 times, pawing at you with their filthy hands and demanding your pocket change.

If you feel badly for the homeless in this country, I'd challenge you to run a restaurant in a downtown setting for about a week. If you don't change your tune quicker than they change their sob stories for each perspective cash cow, I'll nominate you for sainthood.

If you really want to help the homeless and the poor, quit giving them handouts. Let's reform welfare and only give it to people that are working and willing to take regular drug tests. Instead of giving your spare change to the guy on the corner, give him a copy of the Yellow Pages and highlight a few of the billion shelters and programs available, that your tax dollars are already paying for.

Do I have any spare change? I sure do, buddy. The government already takes it out of my paycheck for you. Go find it.

When people exclaim that things like Bum Fights are cruel, I have to chuckle. That shit isn't cruel. It's funny as hell. I want to see Hooker Fights next. I've seen cruel. Tossing a pair of hobos $20 and watching them beat the snot out of each other isn't it. Thats just fucking entertaining, and marketing genius.

And, I'll tell you, when my buddies and I used to get liquored up after high school and drive by hookers throwing pennies, I never saw one that looked like Julia Roberts. Most of them, contain your gasps, looked like addicts trying to score enough money for their next fix. We're supposed to delude ourselves into thinking that prostitution is an acceptable victimless crime because hookers can get free condoms from clinics that our tax dollars pay for to help prevent disease. Yeah, that would be great if they didn't take the cash they got from humping losers to buy smack they shoot up with dirty needles. Awesome.

It's a bit easier for me to stomach my taxes funding an unneeded war for oil for the last ten years because the liberals won't let us drill here and the right wingers won't admit that oil companies need extensive regulation than it is for me to part with my cash for programs designed to help people that don't want help.

Do I have any spare change? About two cents worth. And, if we don't know each other, and if you have the audacity to ask me for anything but the time, you're damn sure gonna get it.