Save your butt!
Or stow it in your ashtray or field strip it or something, just don’t dump it on the ground like the world is your personal ash tray. Thank you very much.
Today’s blog is kind of a follow-up on Friday’s blog about littering. Sam and I learned while researching litter statistics that according to a web site called Litter in America, more than 51 billion pieces of litter are trashing our U.S. roadways each year - just the roads! And tobacco products - mostly cigarette butts - comprise roughly 38% of all U.S. roadway litter.
Now, Sam and I have absolutely nothing against smokers. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. And we’re kind of sorry you’re hounded so much to quit smoking. Still, we’re really glad you can’t smoke on airplanes or in restaurants and some other places these days and if you dump your butts where you shouldn’t someone should kick your butt.
As far as roadside litter is concerned, Sam and I will be darned if we’re going to volunteer to pick up trash along our highways because some lazy slobs can’t figure out what their car ashtrays are for or can’t wait until they get home to fling their trash in a garbage can. Admittedly, many of those people trash the insides of their vehicles rather than litter the roadways, or in addition too . . .
Have you ever trolled a parking lot at a supermarket or shopping mall and looked inside people’s cars? OMG! The amount of trash accumulated in their cars by some people is incredible: old Happy Meal cartoons, beer or soda pop cans or cups, half empty chip bags, odd containers of women’s makeup, old newspapers, movie or music CDs; and ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts; some people treat their vehicles like a moveable landfill.
Some people are just incredibly unconscious of the world around them, we guess. Why else would the young men and women coming and going from the house across the street throw their cigarette butts on the ground where they park in front of our house? Kathleen and I haven’t complained because what good would it do? I did comment one time hat I thought I would put a bucket of sand with a cigarette butt sign on it out on the sidewalk, but Kathleen thought that might be too confrontational.
People used to ask me when I was a cop if I tended to write more traffic tickets when I was in a bad mood. As if ol’ Sunny Jim would ever be in a bad mood. No, I tended to write more tickets when I was in a good mood. But one thing that really put me in a bad mood was littering. I would almost rather write a littering ticket than a speeding ticket. At least there might be a plausible reason for speeding - like, for the sheer joy of it. But I never accepted any explanation for littering. It especially galled me that people would throw cigarette butts or half-smoked cigarettes out their windows. One time I wrote a guy a ticket for throwing a cigar wrapper out his window. The guy took me to court and the judge, who happened to be a friend of his, told me my ticket was kind of frivolous and dismissed the ticket.
Whad’ya gonna’ do?
Anyway, even these days, if I see someone throw trash on the ground I’m very likely to challenge his or her birthright, if you get my drift. Three bags of poop on you lazy buttheads!
Or stow it in your ashtray or field strip it or something, just don’t dump it on the ground like the world is your personal ash tray. Thank you very much.
Today’s blog is kind of a follow-up on Friday’s blog about littering. Sam and I learned while researching litter statistics that according to a web site called Litter in America, more than 51 billion pieces of litter are trashing our U.S. roadways each year - just the roads! And tobacco products - mostly cigarette butts - comprise roughly 38% of all U.S. roadway litter.
Now, Sam and I have absolutely nothing against smokers. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. And we’re kind of sorry you’re hounded so much to quit smoking. Still, we’re really glad you can’t smoke on airplanes or in restaurants and some other places these days and if you dump your butts where you shouldn’t someone should kick your butt.
As far as roadside litter is concerned, Sam and I will be darned if we’re going to volunteer to pick up trash along our highways because some lazy slobs can’t figure out what their car ashtrays are for or can’t wait until they get home to fling their trash in a garbage can. Admittedly, many of those people trash the insides of their vehicles rather than litter the roadways, or in addition too . . .
Have you ever trolled a parking lot at a supermarket or shopping mall and looked inside people’s cars? OMG! The amount of trash accumulated in their cars by some people is incredible: old Happy Meal cartoons, beer or soda pop cans or cups, half empty chip bags, odd containers of women’s makeup, old newspapers, movie or music CDs; and ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts; some people treat their vehicles like a moveable landfill.
Some people are just incredibly unconscious of the world around them, we guess. Why else would the young men and women coming and going from the house across the street throw their cigarette butts on the ground where they park in front of our house? Kathleen and I haven’t complained because what good would it do? I did comment one time hat I thought I would put a bucket of sand with a cigarette butt sign on it out on the sidewalk, but Kathleen thought that might be too confrontational.
People used to ask me when I was a cop if I tended to write more traffic tickets when I was in a bad mood. As if ol’ Sunny Jim would ever be in a bad mood. No, I tended to write more tickets when I was in a good mood. But one thing that really put me in a bad mood was littering. I would almost rather write a littering ticket than a speeding ticket. At least there might be a plausible reason for speeding - like, for the sheer joy of it. But I never accepted any explanation for littering. It especially galled me that people would throw cigarette butts or half-smoked cigarettes out their windows. One time I wrote a guy a ticket for throwing a cigar wrapper out his window. The guy took me to court and the judge, who happened to be a friend of his, told me my ticket was kind of frivolous and dismissed the ticket.
Whad’ya gonna’ do?
Anyway, even these days, if I see someone throw trash on the ground I’m very likely to challenge his or her birthright, if you get my drift. Three bags of poop on you lazy buttheads!
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