Hey smokers - is the world your ashtray?
There's something I have to know. The original title to this piece, one that I have been contemplating for months now, was to be "Pigs on Wheels". Why the change? I figure I'd have infuriated people before they read what I had to say on the subject, not during or afterwards. I want to make people think.
Aside from wanting to get this off my chest and into the limited part of the cyberworld that reads my blog, I want to see someone comment on writings for once. Surely this will make people want to lash out!! So many other blogs I read on a regular basis commonly receive a few or even a few dozen comments after each of their posts. I see that I have a good number of people who check in daily, and I will try to write more than once every seven to ten days to make sure more come back on a regular basis. OK... enough buttering you guys up. You're out there, if I infuriate you or write something particularly touching, please do me a favour and leave a comment or two behind.
Back to the issue at hand. I drive around 35,000 kilometres a year, most of them by myself. Being a naturally curious person and a wannabe journalist, I am always keenly aware of my surroundings. If you didn't renew your license plate sticker last February, chances are I notice that if you're ahead of me in bumper to bumper traffic on the Queensway. Are you from away and are driving a car with Montana license plates? I'll look at your car and wonder what brings you to Canada's nation's capital. All this typically will make me smile and will draw away from the fact I'm going nowhere fast due to some accident down the road. So what do I mean about the world being smoker's ashtray or what exactly are "pigs on wheels"?
In recent years, ashtrays in cars have been shrinking. In some cases, a "smoker's package" is an option when a new car is ordered from a dealership. I guess it is for this reason that one no longer sees disgusting piles of butts and ashes in parking lots. Remember getting out of your car and seeing unsightly "care packages" left behind by smokers whose ashtrays obviously got filled right up to the top in their cars? I can't remember the last time I encountered one of those. Thanks, "ladies" and "gentlemen".
While these people no longer leave wonderful piles in parking lots anymore, they have taken to leaving trails of destruction wherever their cars happen to go. Where can one most commonly come across evidence that many smokers have been around? Take a look at the ground next to you the next time you exit the 417 and are sitting at a light waiting to turn left. It doesn't matter if you want to head north on St. Laurent Blvd. or south on Maitland Ave., if you sit through an average 45 second light cycle and you look over and to the left, you'll find dozens if not hundreds of cigarette butts beside the curb or on the ground where grass once grew. Pigs.
Just this morning I was on Merivale Road in front of Merivale Mall. I was waiting for a light when the forty-something male in a black Honda Accord opened his window and flung his spent cigarette outside. Pig. Years ago I wrote about people like this guy in the West End Chronicle and I sarcastically tried to satirize the situation by claiming that I would love nothing more than to run people like this guy into highway guardrails when I see them doing the same thing. These days I'd love to get out of my truck, pick the butt up and put it neatly under the pig's windshield wiper. I won't do that, of course, because one never knows what someone who could care less about littering laws, his city's ecology or other people's perception of the cleanliness of Canada's capital might do.
People who have read The World as I See It over the years know that I have an undying respect for members of our military. I have two "support our troops" ribbons on the back of my vehicle. One day two weeks ago I was getting off the Queesnway at the Vanier Parkway exit, following a truck occupied by at least two of our finest. Imagine my shock when I saw the driver's window open and a cigarette being flung outside. All I could do is shake my head in amazement. Why soldier, why would you do something like that? Where's your civic pride?
So tell me, smokers, why do you think it is OK for you to use the world as your ashtray? Is it OK for me to come to your house and discard my kitchen waste on your front porch? Probably not. The ironic thing is that the kitchen waste will disappear and turn itself into soil enriching compost while your cigarette butt sits around for years until a street sweeper finally takes it away, leaving the street to receptively sit there, awaiting the next pig on wheels to come by.
Sorry - but if I have offended you, so be it. Chances are very good that if you smoke while in a car, you have thrown at least one cigarette out the window. Don't expect me to applaud you or view your actions as being anything other than socially irresponsible. Think twice before doing it again. If you don't want butts accumulating in your car, there are countless other options for you to consider. Don't be a pig on wheels.
posted by Michael Mason @ 8:05 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Mr. Mason,
This rant has too narrow a focus. The issue is littering, period, as it makes no difference whether the discarded item is a cigarette butt, a chocolate bar wrapper or a snot-rag. I view littering as a slap in the face to Mother Nature: as if she doesn't have bigger things to worry about.
I agree, tossing a dead smoke out one's car window is disrespectful to others, and to Mother Nature.
In the olden days, office buildings had smoking lounges (complete with ashtrays), but then a not-so-funny thing happened: a powerful lobby of authoritarians decided that because they personally detested smoking, that they would pressure governments at all levels to snuff out choice and impose their will on people whose liberty your own military idols supposedly fought for in far too many wars.
As a result, smokers were forced outside and although most buildings did affix nearby "butt-stop" disposal units, many or most of them were so gross that even this disgusting smoker refused to lift the lid to deposit a butt.
Ah, but that adds evidence to the notion that smokers are gross, right, so why should they be concerned about touching such a thing when they're already voluntarily sucking the stuff deep inside their bodies? Well it's a moot point anyway because the authoritarians are now erecting signs that say NO SMOKING WITHIN 50 FEET OF THIS BUILDING. Mental note: sell all Butt-Stop stock in the morning.
There are way more people, today, smoking and littering outside, than there were in say 1970. That's because smokers were forced outside, whether they or their businesses or their customers liked it or even cared or not. So in a sense, the authoritarians are responsible for the increase in butts on the street.
I said at the beginning that litter is litter. When I was about 18 years old, I worked a 24-hour shift at Mac's Milk and when it was time to finally go home, it was too early (or too late) to get a bus - somewhere around 4:00 a.m. - so I had no choice but to walk the 5K. I was beat from being on my feet for so long, and the walk was unbelievably tiring so I hitch-hiked for the first time in my life. After 20 minutes and another 10 blocks in the bank, I asked my Creator for a favour: I promised Him that if the next car to come around the bend actually stopped, that I would never litter again. Wouldn't you know it: a little old lady pulled over and took me straight home.
A few years later while waiting for a bus, I accidently dropped a chocolate bar wrapper on Baseline Rd. and the wind took it for a wild ride. I missed my bus because I would not stop until I retrieved the wrapper, which I eventually did, but only after a few close calls with death.
So you see, even though smokers may be disgusting in the eyes of the antis, we're not really all bad. I'm proud of how I kept my promise to the Big Guy, but I did cut a side deal with him - or call it an exemption - when I'm threatened with prosecution for being too close to a building, or while walking down the fairway.
Man, it's great to know there is someone else in the world that notices this stuff too! I seem to find myself constantly behind a smoker in my car and them flipping their butts out the window. I envision some day the half lit butt going under my car, up into the engine area, and sparking a fire...
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