How Effing Ungrateful!

I am a closet smoker. Smoking is a nasty and bad habit. However, I love it. I do not smoke in the day at all. But each night when I take my bath I puff on two Virgina Slims. I am not a drinker, nor do I have any prescription magic pills to help me deal with stress, so this is my medication. The two smokes calm me and put me in relax mode so that I am ready for sleep. I enjoy it. It is my dirty pleasure. Very few people know that I smoke. Well until now. One of the people who does know is my neighbor. She is on a fixed income. She gets a check at the beginning of the month and has no employment so she rides that check out until its gone which is usually around the 15th of each month. Then she is broke. The problem is she too is a smoker. Apparently a chain smoker. We all know cigarettes are expensive so if you are that broke that is an even worse habit to behold. Anyhoo to get to the point I am her cigarette supplier from the 15th to the 3rd of the next month. 

It started out just a smoke here and there but now it has become expected. In my silly attempt to cut down on all the phone calls and stop-bys I started to give her 4 or 5 at a time thinking that would hold her a couple days and I would not have to deal with the dramatics. That worked the first two times then it would seem even if I gave her 5 smokes the next day there she would be waiting for me to stock her up again. This was extremely frustrating because since I smoke so little my pack would last a week. Now with her my pack lasts a day or so. I have even bought her an entire pack so that she can give me some peace but even then she blows through them in a day and she's back begging the next day. It is annoying and exhausting. I have tried to explain to her that I am a very light smoker and usually have just enough to get me through and that now that she is smoking on my dime I find that I am spending quite a bit more. I get apologies and the "oh I feel terrible" but the asking does not stop. 

Any real smoker knows that when you smoke and have no smokes it is a horrible predicament to be in. So she calls me as soon as I pull up, I am not even out of the car yet. If I don't answer she runs out to catch me. If she is unsuccessful she will knock on my door. There is no way to get around it other than to just be a bitch and say no more. Which by the way I am not quite prepared to do just yet although I feel it is coming. So last week when she was calling over and over and I was ignoring her I could feel that she was headed over. I gave cigarettes to Mason and said "quick run these to Mrs. Judy's house." He returned 10 minutes later (because no visit to Mrs Judy's house is a quick one) shaking his head.  

I asked what happened he said "well mom she opened the door and I said my mom said to give these to you. She opened the box and yelled only two! My god she only sent me two! And then she started to cry. She cried and cried and I had to come in and get her at tissue. I asked her what was wrong and she said your mom only gave me two. Is she out or something? Why would she do that? Is she mad?"  
After hearing what had happened I was livid! I started to go over there and demand my two cigarettes back. How dare she! Are you effing kidding me! Come on! I am raising a family of 6 over here on a very small amount of money. I am sure if you broke down the person to money ratio she would be rich compared to us. She just mishandles her money apparently. But I just thought it was the most ungrateful response I had ever seen. For that I ignored her for an entire week. It took a lot of ducking and being rude when she would come walking up my driveway but after about 4 days she got the hint and laid low. 
I noticed my smokes were still disappearing too quickly. I asked David one evening had he been tampering with my pack. He said yeah. "I've gotten a few here and there." "Why?" I asked irritated that my pack had somehow become the community pack. He said "well everyday when I pull up from work Mrs Judy meets me in the driveway and needed some so I have been splitting  my pack with her which left me short so I had to get some out of yours. UUUGGGHHHH