Anyone who has ever driven in a car with me for any amount of time knows that I dislike it when other drivers throw cigarette butts out their car windows. And by “dislike” I mean, full on, balls to the wall shit storm apoplectic. I have honked my horn. I have screamed incoherent nonsense. I have even rolled down my window and shouted “The world is not your fucking ashtray!”
Anyone who has been a passenger in my car also knows that I have anger issues.
But seriously, people, the cigarette butts. Why do people think this is ok? They wouldn’t dream of throwing a wrapper or an empty Starbucks cup or a pee-stained mattress out their car window, and yet, a cigarette butt is somehow a Get Out Of Jail Free card. I just don’t get it. Cigarette butts are not made of apple cores or Finger Jell-O. They do not start to disintegrate when exposed to sunlight, like Gremlins or vampires. They do not melt like ice cubes. One only has to look at the curb outside a stop light and see a veritable archive of smoker detritus. And that’s just since the last time they cleaned the streets. The filters are made from plastic and are full of chemicals and if you throw them into a sewer drain, that’s going into the water. GAH! I’m getting angry right now, just typing this!
I have often said that if Warren Buffet were to suddenly remember a fling with my mother in 1970, I would invest some of my inheritance into a public service campaign about this social problem. I don’t know what that would be, exactly. I hear that there are PSA’s in California about it, but since we don’t really have issues with wild fires here, the problem is rather extreme. Cigarette butts are the number one source of litter in the world. Thus, I scream at people out the window. It’s all I have to cling to.
And a lit cigarette butt? On the highway when I am driving behind you and I have my sunroof open? You, Sir or Madam, are a fuckwad.
I have been in one hell of a mood since being ill. I just don’t want to talk to anyone, just hide in my house and not come out. It’s difficult to be polite when really, I just want to walk around snarling and shouting “Mother Fucker!” at everyone. Even little old ladies.
In this morning’s entry (oh Holidailies what a cruel mistress you are), I mentioned that I was feeling better but my gut was speaking in tongues. Either I spoke too soon or the dehydrated apple chips I had for breakfast decided that they were not really interested in being one with my person. While driving around at lunch, my tum decided that it had had enough.
I pulled into a notoriously clean gas station and was immediately cut off by a teal Alero that had at least three dreamcatchers and air freshener crystals hanging from its rearview mirror. I waited for it to pass and then watched in horror as the driver threw a lit cigarette out the window. It wasn’t even a butt. It looked like she had lit it, took one drag and then threw the whole thing out the window. At a gas station.
“GAH!” I screamed and declared to no one that I hated her. This makes me feel better, saying that I hate another driver as though I’m three years old. Do not judge. I parked while she pulled up to a pump and got out. She was sporting a long female mullet. Nice.
I found the facilities and was happy to see that it was a single lockable room, but almost as soon as I had dropped trou, someone was trying the lock. FUCK. It’s not bad enough that I had horrible stomach cramps that might have been gas or might have been yet another gallon of sorrowful exodus caused by the Misery Virus 2006. Luckily, my guts are as swift and silent as a ninja.
Then I realized that there were but three wispy thin squares of toilet paper in the entire locked room.
MOTHER FUCKER! God, I hate people.
Luckily, it was enough. The handle on the door jiggled again. Jesus, people! You just heard the toilet flush two seconds ago so clearly it’s occupied.
I was already dreading the fact that I’d have to tell the person waiting anxiously outside the door that there was no toilet paper, but when I exited, the Whole Cigarette Littering Mullet Girl standing there sneering at me as though I had purposely made her wait.
I passed her without saying a word.
Karma. It’s a beautiful thing.
