Yet another way smoking can kill

Since I have never so much as taken a single puff on a cigarette (yes, really) I have a question for all you smokers out there: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?  Wait, wait, wait.  No, that wasn't what I wanted to ask.  I got sidetracked for a second thinking about how stupid smoking is.  What I meant was, I've noticed that smokers tend to be very generous when someone, even a complete stranger, asks them for a cigarette.  I would never give a stranger a sip of my drink (whatever it may be) or a bite of my sandwich (especially if it had bacon on it), but I've always been impressed by smokers happily handing over one of their precious carcinogen sticks without hesitation.  But my question is this: what do you do when you ask to bum a cigarette and get turned down?  Is there some protocol you're supposed to follow?  Is there some set of rules?

This next guy must not have read that rule book.

I suppose cigarettes are just too expensive these days, so the guy simply ran out and needed a nicotine fix.  Normally bumming a cigarette wouldn't be a problem for him, since smokers are, as much as it boggles the mind, easy to find.  And it should have been a piece of cake to "borrow" a cigarette from a complete stranger.  But he just happened to pick the wrong stranger.  I am likely paraphrasing, but the conversation went something like this:

Patient: Hey, can I bum a cigarette?
Stranger: Um, no.
Patient: What?
Stranger: I said no.
Patient: Ok, I'm going to beat the shit out of you.

So the guy attacked the stingy smoker for not simply handing over a cigarette.  What he didn't count on was the other guy being much faster than he.  And having a knife.  Not only did he receive multiple lacerations all over his body, he didn't even end up getting his cigarette.

We sutured up his lacerations and sent him home, after suggesting that he either A) quit smoking or B) quit attacking ninjas.