Thursday, November 29, 2007

littered with thought

This is just a random thought, a stream of semi-consciousness. We know one of my major peeves is cigarette smoke. Want to know another one? People who litter. Is that dumb? I'm not sure why but it really pains me when I see people litter. I cringe, aghast, totally shocked. I can't believe people would just so carelessly defile this already increasingly trashed-on world. It makes me sad and mad and I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to tell someone who let a piece of trash fall, "excuse me, you dropped that" and point it out to them. What would they do? Be embarrassed? tell me "uhh yeah i did. on purpose." How would i react to that? Would i take it upon myself to shame them and give them an exaggerated look of horror? I might. I'm not saying it would be right, but I might. Maybe not though. But i'm just proud that i've never actually done that because I am of course not without flaw. (i only have one though. heh) Yesterday i walked on a sidewalk that had trash EVERYWHERE. And, not only that but the sidewalk had the scariest, tallest scratchiest weeds. I could swear i had fallen into a vortex that dropped me into the jungle. A junkyard jungle. Anyway, I'm not sure what brought this on. I just really have strong feelings about littering. Thanks for reading. Now I will go turn on some lights and various appliances to entertain myself.

p.s. i thought the title would be funny because "littered" is like the exact opposite kind of, of "riddled" and that's a phrase, right? riddled with thought? now i don't know anymore, and i'm not sure why it would be funny. ah well.

7 comments:

Brooke said...

ha ha. Nice, Jen. And, "riddled with..." is a phrase of sorts, though I don't know I've heard "riddled with thought." I like it though. :)

Joel said...

I'd like to bring your two pet peeves together. I can't stand when people throw cigarette butts out the car window. What, it's not bad enough that they're giving me cancer? Now they have to dump their gross trash on the road? I often fantasize about stopping at a red light behind someone who did that, picking it up off the road, going to their car window, and, as you said, saying "Excuse me. You dropped this."
One day I'll have the guts, but I should probably buy a bulletproof vest first.

Anonymous said...

I have a fun litter story that just happened today. So our kitchen window looks out onto a tiny street where the bakery and small grocery store also are. Today while I was getting something in the kitchen, I watched a man finish a bottle of beer (I assumed it was beer---it is Poland, afterall), and then walk over to the backside of the bakery (a.k.a. center stage from our apartment), hold the bottle against his leg, squat a little, and slowly lower the bottle to the ground. And then he walked away. I wanted to open the window and yell out "I saw that! Pick it up, buddy, and throw it away! What, is the glass recycling bin across the street too far away for you?" But I don't know enough Polish for that.

)en said...

Oh man. When you said "squat" i thought you were going to say he peed in the bottle. I was going to be totally grossed out, and impressed.

Joel--amen. grrrrr

thanks B. :)

Brooke said...

Ha ha, I thought the same when I read Ash's post. Thank heavens it was only littering. :)

Scoresbys said...

Okay, so I actually have shamed people for littering. And it felt good. I was walking on BYU campus behind some loser guy who was walking out of the Twilight Zone with his lunch. He opened a package and a piece off it came off so he just looked at it and then tossed it on the ground. My soul gasped and I acted impulsively. I grabbed his small piece of trash, chased him down, and said, "Oh, I'm sure you didn't notice but you dropped this." He looked at me with utter confusion, muttered "Thanks," stuffed the trash in his pocket and walked away. I walked away smirking. And I'd do it again. Should I not be so proud of this story?

)en said...

Oh man, Mary. You're my hero.