Can I gets the lights?!!?

Being enslaved in the "corporate world" for the past many years, I was able to witness and participate in a Social ritual, which many of my fellow slaves rigorously follow, called Smoking. Somewhere in October 2010, the assh**e nanny government branded these "practitioners “ as pagan and banished them from being close to any social habitat. Since then the rituals have been moved to more desolate locations, like behind office buildings, under the bridges, wastelands and dilapidated building compounds. This separation from community and specifically from the cigarette shops (Pan Tapri.. as it isloving called), posed a new problem hitherto non-existent, Nicotine deficient vagrants continuously begging fellow smokers for a match to light up their cigarettes. The amount of social interaction I have experienced in these encounters turned out to be an eye opener on human Psyche andSocial Intelligence.

“Okay... That last linesounded way too profound... Really??”

Alright, may be it gives a sneak peak at quirks in human behaviour.
I have discovered, to best of what my underdeveloped neurons could analyze,specific set patterns in these behaviours and drawn some inferences which i am about to share. If you have been one harassed recently by teeming hordes of people begging for light, the following may help you a bit.

The Cigarette Havaldar/Bureaucrat:

This is mostly a lumbering overweight person, (can be thin and scrawny or normal), but more importantly a person whose innards resemble the contents of a sewage tank. He walks into the smoking areas with at least one of his minions hobbling behind him. He will target you long before you notice him and will stride towards you while his minions fervently get the cigarette ready. And like a autocratic noble from the medieval ages, he will stand next to you,extending an open palm in your face, while he continues to regale his minion with the story of how he wrote a kick-ass email. Now, it is up to your good judgment to understand that what he basically is doing is asking for a light.The obnoxious factor here is total absence of the courtesy to even ask for the matches.

Mitigation?

Assume he is begging and drop a coin in the palm.

If you are so inclined, you may kiss the palm and ask for his blessings toabsolve your sins.

You may take a deep thoughtful look at the palm pretending to read it, and predict he will die a horrible death by having his eyes scorched out with burning cigarettes.

The Cigarette Neurotic

Okay not very imaginative title but functional.

This variety, as you may have guessed, is more of a lonely kind. He will walk slowly in the field unnoticed. He bears an expression which says the mere presence of life around him make him miserable. He will draw out a cigarette and will each time realise he does not have any matches or a lighter.
If you happen to be standing next to him, you are screwed. He will look at you like you are vomit of a rabid dog that ate stale poo. And then will ask you for light, as if it was the most demeaning thing in life ever. And as you go ahead to give him a lighter or even lend him your cigarette, he will look at you as if the moment he is done, he will blast you to dust with a million watt laser coming from his eyes. These interactions sometimes cause loss of confidence and/ or courage.

Mitigation?

This kind is easy to detect due to the deliberate slow movements andoverly dramatic expressions. The easiest way is to throw him off guard byextending light before he gets a chance to ask.
This confuses his brain which thinks you are a worthless pile of garbage, whileyou are actually sentient and helpful.

The “Great Cornholio”

"Tee Pee for my bunghole?? "

Now, if you guys ever read asterix comics before, you will know that his side kick, obelix, is a man who has superhuman strength due to the fact that he fell in a cauldron full of magical potion, as a infant. Now imagine a similar person except that he fell in a cauldron full of Red bull mixed with sugar syrup. This guy is actually so hyper active that you actually only see him as a blur. Butts/ Filters of cigarettes smoked by this dude are defeated and get punctured under such intense stress of act of smoking.

He will simply grunt in front of you with the cigarette dangling from his lips and even before the signals register in your brain you will see his hand either reaching for your cigarette or at least gesticulating at you to hurry as if you were in ER intern trying to save the life of a trauma case.

Mitigation?

You may approach in both positive and negative ways depending on if you really wish to help.

You may crawl in to the basement and pray he is out your reach.

You may fumble endlessly in your pocket trying to draw out the match box, which will cause the dust devil of a person to drift to the next victim. But chances are you would get scratched / mauled by aforementioned attempts to grab your cigarette.

If you are able to spot it approaching, you can drop the matches /lighter and step away, so that he may light up and leave you unharmed.

In case you yourself don’t have any matches to spare, you can try point 3, or move cautiously behind some other group causing him to alter directions. Either way requires you to have complete awareness of the surroundings.

The True Brit

This is a fairly pleasant type and possibly many of us will be in the periphery of this kind. Here we discuss a person with obsessive compulsive need forcourtesy and etiquette. Good part is it is unobtrusive but it may cause someamount of guilt later.

This kind forget matches rarely, and on those occasions will truly search themselves thoroughly and will declare publicly with sighs and sometimes curse words (read as “fuck”) in an attempt to prove the genuineness of their forgetfulness. They will approach you and wait for you to notice them withoutbreaking into your conversation (or even deep thought if you are alone). When you do notice him, with the most humble look a lamb can ever have, ask you withalmost a deliberate stammer,

“Err, Excuse me.. Sorry, I wonder if you could spare me some match”,

All this while holding the cigarette as if to provethe truthfulness of his request. All he misses is a Hat twirling in his hand,if you must.

Mitigation?

None. Only thing to mitigate here is you not noticing him sooner, as it will only add to any guilt you may have.

These are a few exaggerated caricatures you might encounter in your smoking escapades.

I can’t end this without emphasizing that I do notcondone or wish to promote smoking. Smoking kills you in the most horrible ways and such that you will mostly end up having a closed casket funeral. Do not Smoke.

:P
:D