The Ottawan cigarette man, bummer on the steps

My boyfriend Brad and I take turns spending the weekends at each others apartments - a rather new trend because until very recently, Brad has lived in the dorms at the Ottawa campus. Lately encounters with the "cigarette man" have been interesting.

Brad and his two friends moved into a three bedroom apartment in a not so nice part of Ottawa. I wouldn't say it's Topeka-scary, but it has its fair share of oddities. The neighbors, for example, aren't my favorite people in the world. 

Every evening, just like clockwork, the downstairs neighbor sits on the steps leading to Brad's apartment and smokes about three cigarettes consecutively. I have no idea what this guy's name is because when he takes a break from huffing and puffing and decides to speak, the words that come out don't quite sound like real words. Instead, they resemble a mushed-up version of the English language. 

The awkward encounters go something like this, "Hey man, what's up?" and we receive some sort of response like, "Hey-ya-it's-all-good-bro-ha." 

Sometimes, if we are really lucky, the cigarette man will ask Brad to play a game of basketball. Brad always quickly rejects the offer, but offers the chance of a future game some other time. I'm more than sure that this basketball game will not ever actually happen, but if it ever does, I sure hope I can witness it. However, tales of the cigarette man don't even touch the loveliness of the relatives of the cigarette man, also living in the downstairs apartment.

For about three nights, one of cigarette man's relatives, a teenager probably about 16-years-old, invites her friends over to do some smoking of their own on the steps. Although this time, they're not smoking cigarettes. The end of this lovely tale will be shared in the next blog post. 

Edited by Lisa Herdman