SEEING GREEN

San Francisco is filling up with all the wrong people. No, contrary to what you might think, this post is not about a particular ethnic group.
I know that the Teapartiers among my dedicated readership would wish that I write a rant about people from elsewhere who might not speak American English with optimum fluency, and have something like a tan but from natural causes like DNA. But this ain't that.
Sorry to disappoint you.

Instead, I wish to talk about people who, but for their hipness and with-it-ness, would be the types to get addicted to illicit substances and ruin their lives, starting a downward spiral that eventually lands them in an ultra-violent trailer park on the outskirts of Atlanta or San Antonio.
Precisely the type of person to whom exercise clubs aim their membership drives.

Healthy buff people of sensitivity and all the best taste.

One such came to a halt beside me as I was waiting for the light.
Exactly as I lit up one of my little cheroots.
Because I felt like a smoke.

"Hey! Do you mind?!?! I'm standing here!"

I'm not sure what he was thinking. Perhaps he felt that coming to a standstill in a particular place gave him ownership. Was he somehow 'entitled'? Was there an overlooked prior claim?
I thought about it for a second.

Then I told him: "yes".

"Huh? Yes what?"

"Yes, I mind your standing. SIT DOWN!!!"

Instinctively he started to hurk.
He caught himself before his tight athletic buns felt pavement, and said "hey wait that's not what I meant what I meant was that you are doing something I find incredibly offensive and it's unhealthy you should put it out I don't want to die from your smoke!"

"Oh I don't mind that at all, I'm QUITE enjoying it, there's a smoke-free corner over there. If you want to stay here, please don't breathe. That's MY smoke, and I begrudge you the second-hand pleasure. Mine. And I keenly begrudge you! Ever see a middle-aged smoker go ballistic?
Because if you haven't, I can demonstrate!"

See, ever since that cold spell back in December there's frequently a sharp hot stabbing pain in my right leg, that starts in the lower calf and on a bad day eventually climbs all the way up till at last even my arse is tingling and throbbing. It's extremely unpleasant. I had just been to Walgreens to pick up sourdough and a sixteen pack of toilet paper after walking around Chinatown with a pipe-full of Luxury Bullseye flake after tea -- one cannot smoke indoors in this pissy disapproving excuse for a city anymore, thanks to blisters like mister healthconscious hip young office droodge who was standing right next to me -- and in consequence my entire right leg hurt like billy-o.

Yes, I minded him standing there.

I wished him to go away.

Or just shut up.


All of you people who came here from elsewhere in the United States, go back there. You're breathing our air, and we don't like you.


My leg hurts, and you're pissing me off.


The light finally turned.



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