Sunday, March 18, 2007

What's Wrong with (Some) People?

I was out for a walk today. I love the country, seeing the trees, hearing the wind rustle the leaves, having my eye caught by a splash of gold or lavender amid the green. But there are idiots around who have put a cramp in my enjoyment. I'm referring to the assholes who think the woods are their personal trash dump. It's not even the reefs of beer bottles and soda cans washed up in the ditches, or the blowing newspapers and napkins. It's the damned rotted "sofas," broken "TVs," "car seats," "refrigerators," "chest-of-drawers," and the freaking "piles" of black nylon trash bags spilling their cornucopia of crap into my environment. What the hell is wrong with people? I wish I had the power to take every last cast off carpet remnant and other piece of garbage and rematerialize it in the living rooms of the idiots who threw them out. I'd force them to live in the filth they create until they learned to dispose of it properly.

10 comments:

Steve Malley said...

Some folk really do need a 2x4 kicked up their ass sideways.

One of my NZ-moving motivators was the way people here more or less look after what we all have in common.

It means more than I can say to walk on beaches without broken bottles, and to step into woods without McDonalds wrappers.

Erik Donald France said...

Sounds like a city. It's a shame people can't clean up after themselves when they need to.

RichardS said...

Over here in the UK, most councils have tried to save money by cutting back on refuse collections. As a result the countryside is increasingly being used as a free rubbish tip by those who can't be bothered to take their refuse to official dumps.

Now local councils are deciding whether to charge us extra for collections they used to be obliged to do.

I wonder what the result of that decision will be?

Lana Gramlich said...

Nevermind just materializing the garbage in the homes of the litterers--I'd make them EAT it, too. :)

JR's Thumbprints said...

I'm with Erik on this one. It sounds like some contractor unloading his crap in the back alleys of Detroit.

Susan Miller said...

Just this weekend I was thinking about a time with my Dad. We were making our way through the woods to a creek when he stopped, pointed his large handled blade at a small object below a pine and said "Look at that." I looked down and saw an orange, crumpled Sunkist can.

I bent down to pick it up. He stopped me and then went on to explain how he thought it got there. It was a story about some "boys" my brother knew riding four wheelers across his property. He didn't have much of a problem with them being on his property but he would be damned to let them throw their trash on his land.

I once again bent down to pick it up, and he said "no". Then he explained how those boys were going to pick up that can when he found them. I looked at him and grinned. He's a pretty scarey boy...and even more frightening with that long blade.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to pick up the can, Dad?"

"You're missing the point, Boog."

It's been a couple of years so the next time I make it home I may ask about that can and see if I hear of any missing boys.

Drizel said...

My word Charles that is horrid, we have some sick idiots out there....I dont understand humans:(

Michelle's Spell said...

I hear you -- it's creepy to walk around in nature and see a couch or clothes or whatever! I always wonder who has been living there or if something bad happened.

Lana Gramlich said...

In our neighborhood (way out in the country,) there's no public garbage pickup. We pay an outside contractor $22/mo (a pittance, really--less than a dollar a day,) but wherever fees are related to garbage pickup/disposal, this is what you're going to get, every single time. The same thing happened where I lived in Canada once they started charging residents fees to use the local dump. All of a sudden the country started filling up with garbage.
People are idiots. It would help, of course, if corporations stopped over-packaging their products (among other things.)

cs harris said...

I had the same reaction when Steve and I went for a walk around the lake last weekend. All that trash. How can anyone enjoy living in that environment and yet ruin it with litter? It made me realize some people aren't there by choice--they live there because it's cheap and don't realize what a gift they've been given.