Great cigarette giveaway

A follow-up to the found pack of Marlboros—cigarettes that I couldn't bring myself to toss because, as a reformed smoker,  I remember how disagreeably desperate it was to be addicted and fresh out.  Just last week I saw a guy scrounge a ground-out butt in the grocery store parking lot and light up right there. This guy would be a lot better off if he wasn't a smoker, of course, but it's not so easy. Ask anybody without the means to buy cigarettes who's reduced to stooping for butts, which was my occasional degradation as a super-addicted 20-something.

I dropped the pack in the same parking lot so it looked like it had accidentally fallen out of my car, then I peeked from inside the grocery store.
That lasted about two minutes. How sick am I to stand here watching the bait? And who/what am I trying to catch?

I got what I came for and was in the check-out line behind a 40ish woman, who was visibly twitchy. She initiated a conversation. It came out that she and her unemployed boyfriend had borrowed a car to come to town for food, which she paid for with food stamps. Usually they walk, but it was misting outside. (The cost of a pack of Marlboros at this store: $5.29.)

I blurted, "Do you smoke?"
'"What?! Well, yes. Can you smell it on me?"
"No, of course not!" I said. And I really couldn't. It was something about her twitching, not that twitching is a necessarily a characteristic of the nicotine-deprived.
"There's a pack of cigarettes in the parking lot by my car. Do you want it?"
She practically jumped me in her enthusiasm. She didn't ask why the cigarettes were there, but I told her that I planted them hoping a smoker would pick them up. She grabbed my arm and stared me in the eye. Her face was red and getting redder.
"Are they still there?!"
I could see that they were,  soggier by the second. We got out there in a flash. It had been maybe five minutes total. She picked up the pack and right away counted the treasure. Fifteen! Some were soggy. She could dry them!
"Thanks!" she called over her shoulder as she hurried to share the bounty.

Mission accomplished. As the title of my last post foretold: Gimme a toke, I'm so broke, gimme a cigarette I can smoke. I refuse to feel guilty.

Gimme a toke, I'm so broke, gimme a cigarette I can smoke

I spotted this pack of Marlboros alongside the road as I trotted along with my iPod last week. It looked like a fresh pack, and yes indeed, 15 cigarettes remained. Who would toss a pack of cigarettes?  A couple was arguing about one's inability to quit?  The other grabbed the pack and hurled it out the window as the car careened down the road, tires and voices screeching? Coulda happened, but the violence that likely ensued would have made the local news. You don't want to mess with a smoker's stash or wrestle with them over a nearly full pack in a moving vehicle.
Less likely, a solitary smoker, guilty and self-loathing, threw them in a fit of resolve. I don't think that would happen, though, because a person who wants to quit smoking would finish off the pack and then start a new life, which, of course, is going to be unbearable and hideous into the distant future.
Least likely of all, the pack fell out of somebody's pocket or backpack. Had that occurred, I think the person would've backtracked. Cigarettes cost around $4 a pack these days, and have you noticed that a lot of smokers, especially those who would be walking along a highway, look like they can't afford it? Not that smoking cigarettes has anything to do with having the means to support the habit. I'm as self-righteous as the next non smoker, and can't help but wonder how homeless people and wandering-around-town-at-all-hours-teens afford cigarettes.

I tucked the pack into my pocket and haven't been able to trash them. Why? Because somebody wants  them and, more critical, needs them.