Lipstick-Stained Butts Aren't Worth Fighting For

So for various reasons, the past couple years I've been living in pretty much ABjEcT poverty. I've been surviving on working just a part-time job as a porn-store janitor and supplementing it with the (very) occasional temporary job (selling glowsticks at carnivals, front desk clerk at Motel 6) and occasional sales of my "Obama Taco Underwear" paintings. I'm a semi-regular presence at local community kitchens where I get free food. I have next to zero disposable income and doing things like eating out, shopping, doing anything social that requires money, etc., are pretty much out of the question. I have the mindset where this doesn't bother me as much as it would alot of people, but man, the worst thing about being broke all the time is trying to support my insatiable CIgArEttE HaBiT! I simply can't afford them, but yet I simply can't quit either.

One of the things I've come up with to solve the problem is smoking what I call "Billy's Blend." My first name is actually William; people call me "Bill" (but you can call me "Taco," lol). And "Billy's Blend" is made up of a mixture of the tobacco wrought from all the cigarette butts I pick up in public ashtrays and on the street. Yes, I do this; it's disgusting, I know. In most instances, when I pick up a cigarette butt from the ground, I tear the tobacco from the filter and, once I've found enough butts to make a whole cigarette doing this, I roll the tobacco salvaged from the various types and brands of cigarettes into a paper and smoke it. So I'm not smoking it straight from the filter of some stranger. That is UNLESS I find a cigarette butt that is at least 3/4 the size of the original cigarette-- in these cases I often just say fuck it and start smoking it straight from the filter, germs be damned. I especially like smoking from butts that have LIPSTICK on them so I can imagine I'm sort of somehow indirectly touching lips with some hot chick, sucking on her lipstick-stained cigarette butt the way I'd like for her to suck on my . . . . . BURRITO? LOL!!!

Hey, baby, I got your little butt in my mouth but what about your other butt, the BIG JUICY one? Hahahaha

So yeah, it's fucking sad and pathetic. And these "Billy's Blend" cigarettes are sometimes so awful tasting that when I smoke them I feel like crying or putting a gun to my head. I don't even care who sees me picking these butts off the street anymore. I've gone up to public ashtrays in front of convenience stores, the library, hotels, etc. and there will be people standing right next to them. I just say, "Hey, what's up?" if anything at all as they watch me picking through all the butts, occasionally saying things like, "Oh that's a good one there!" like a jeweler would hold a prized diamond up to the light. Sometimes someone will throw a butt down on the sidewalk right as I'm approaching and they'll see me pick it up.

I've also thought about this marketing idea. I could go to all these different cities nearby, picking up cigarette butts and blending all the tobacco into these plastic sandwich bags, have the butts organized by the cities I get them from. Sell them to people on the street who are as desperate as me for tobacco. I could have "Chicago Blend," "Indianapolis Blend," Cincinnati Blend," etc.

No one said anything or seemed to care or be offended by my picking their nasty used butts up off the ground and smoking them until TODAY when I almost got into a fight with some customer at work. I went outside to rake leaves at work this morning and I saw a cigarette butt lying on the ground. It was about 3/4 of a cigarette so I was like, hey my lucky day! I automatically popped it into my mouth and lit it, started smoking away. After taking about two puffs off of it some guy comes out of the store. He looks down on the ground where I'd picked up the butt, appearing bewildered, like he was looking for something. He then kind of shakes his head, looks at me and asks me for a cigarette. I look at him and say, "Nah, I don't have any, man, this is my last one," referring to the one in my hand. He looks at it and says, "Hey, that's my cigarette! I left it out here a few minutes ago before I walked into the store!" And this dude was some scumbag. He was getting all angry and I could tell he was willing to physically fight me over this fucking cigarette butt.

I just act dumb and say, "Nah, man, this ain't your cigarette," but I knew that it was. I could just tell, but I was dumbfounded and shocked that this guy was actually wanting the cigarette back that he had thrown on the ground 10 minutes before!

"It's a fucking Winston 100 Ultra Light," the guy said, "right there there in your hand. That's my cigarette, I left it on the ground planning to get it when I came back out!"

I was pretty agitated. Not only was I being called out on picking this dude's cigarette butt from the ground, I was being put in a position where I had to GIVE IT BACK TO HIM OR FIGHT HIM OVER IT! I decided this shit just wasn't worth fighting over or getting in a physical altercation with a customer and potentially in trouble at work over, so I just handed the guy his dumb fucking cigarette butt and said, "Here, take it then." I don't know, the whole experience just made me want to quit smoking more than ever. Luckily after having to give the guy his butt back, I looked over a few feet away by the dumpster and found another butt that was just as big. I managed to smoke it all the way down this time without some fucker coming up to me and CLAIMING IT.