Unfiltered truth

Had a funny little moment the other night. On the way to Showdown to meet up with Gavagirl, Oubliette, Sarah, Greg and others, I passed a few homeless guys asking me for change. I told one of them I didn't have any cash, but would he like a cigarette? He gratefully accepted, but as I dug around in my bag, I realized that I had left my cigarettes at Gavagirl's new apartment.

"Fuck! God damn it! Shit! I can't believe this; I can't go to bar without cigarettes. This sucks my ass!"

The two homeless dudes were very sympathetic and comforting, and they told me I should try to have a good night, anyway. I continued to the bar and bummed cigarettes off Sarah and Shelly all night, which will have to repaid in the future, of course. Walking back to my car later, I passed the bums again who asked where I was going.

"Home, where my cigarettes are."

"Here, I'll roll you one," one of them replied. I plopped down beside them on the sidewalk and introduced myself while he was rolling the cigarette. One was named Chris, and the other was named Spencer. We were soon joined by more bums whose names I can't recall. Chris was disturbed when he discovered my name, since it was the same as the name of his girlfriend who had broken up with him, kicked him out of her house, and left him in his current homeless state. Spence didn't really care (he'd probably heard it before) and continued concentrating on the tobacco. It was at that point I realized he was rolling me a cigarette WITHOUT A FILTER.

No, no, no. "No way, dude, I can't smoke without a filter. That's too hardcore for me. Once you do that, you're over the edge." Spence was insistent that I take the cigarette and that I would "get used to it after the first puff." He was right about that, although I still think I caused some serious damage to my lungs. It seemed to burn so slowly, only going down whenever I took a drag. I had to surreptitiously blow a few mouthfuls of smoke out without inhaling just to get through the damn thing. I don't think it was really that bad, of course, it was just the association I have with unfiltered cigarettes and really scary, nicotine-addicted freaks.

It was nice, though, to sit there and talk about nothing with those guys in the middle of the sidewalk at 1:00am. When I worked in Houston, all of the homeless guys hanging out at the church were my buddies, so I got used to striking up conversations with people on street corners all the time. This kind of things makes a lot of people very nervous, or at the least uncomfortable. Me, I say be friendly to the homeless, because you might be one of them someday. Of course, when I say that, I'm thinking of myself in about two weeks when I run out of money.