This happens more often than it absolutely should. You’re driving…stop-start driving, on a
highway with lots of traffic lights, and there’s people you recognize as you
agonizingly creeping down the highway.
The man/woman next to you has the window open, and you notice that they’re
smoking. Truth be told, you knew someone
was smoking, because if your car is like mine, and you don’t have the setting
on your AC/Heat set to recycle the air in the cabin, then you’ve been smelling
cigarette smoke for about 3 lights now.
So, there’s this dude/dudette, and they’re smoking, and just
as they finish their last draw, they then flick that butt onto the street.
Can you help me answer this question: where the hell do they
think that butt goes? I’d like to
believe that it’s not just wanton apathy towards littering. Because 9 times out of 10, that’s what it
is. Instead, I’d prefer that their limited intellect suggests to them that if
they populate highways/streetscapes/mall parking lots with cigarette butts,
that they’re doing some kind of benevolent service to the community. For instance, one of the following perhaps:
Cigarette smokers firmly believe that they are actively
padding freeways and streets to reduce damage caused by severe collisions on
those roads. The amount of paper and
tobacco residue is sufficient enough to “soften the blow” of the crash enough
to save lives. Thank god they’re
throwing their butt out the window because, if they didn’t, there would be far
more deaths and injury due to auto collisions.
Cigarette smokers are fairly ignorant of how a cigarette is
made. Yes, it’s delicious at 8am after a
good night’s sleep. Takes the edge off
of…well…sleep, which is just nerve wracking.
No, smokers firmly believe that there are seed properties in the butt of
the cigarette, and that by tossing them out the window, they are somehow
attempting to re-plant new cigarette trees for everybody to enjoy! What a service they are providing. It’s the damn government’s street-sweepers
that are the problem, keeping those seeds from germinating and reducing
cigarette spending by killing the “crop” before it’s manifested!
Cigarette smokers live by their own rules. You know those kids from high school…the
rebels: the ones who smoked. God we
wanted to be like them. And their reward
for being such trend-setters in life is the ability to litter wherever they’d
like. Hell, it’s their right. They’ve earned it. I mean, without them, 1980’s black leather
jackets with long tassels would have been considered tacky instead of righteous! Where would rock and roll be without the
cigarette? Music? Late nights in the art studio? These people, these blessed cigarette
smokers, have built our culture from the ground up, so cut them a little slack
if they feel like rolling down the window and throwing a potentially live flame
into the street. Let me ask you this:
what have you done to repay them?
Exactly.
That all said, I find it really crappy that people just don’t
think about what they’re going to do with that butt when they’re done. It would be great if we could call them out
on it as it happens. Help me? We don’t really need to stand for it anymore
because it’s flat out wrong and stupid.
Please help me help them think for once.
Not sure we’ll have an impact
because they are obviously of limited intelligence, but we can try. All hands in: go team!
