Dave Saves the Earth from Cigarette Butts Monday, January 22, 2001
I’ve been having a strange week. I’ll spare you the boring details and get right to the part where I lost my mind. That’s the fun part anyway. This morning while driving to work, I saw something that made me snap. I was stopped waiting for a green light, when the driver of the car in front of me flicked a cigarette butt out of his window. We’ve all seen that before, and usually it goes unnoticed along with all the bubble gum wrappers and plastic grocery bags that some archaeologist of the future will use to judge our civilization. Not today though, I noticed. He was trashing my planet. It actually made me angry. Without a moment of hesitation, or even a clear idea of what I was about to do, I got out of my car and walked up to his window. I looked in at this littering stranger and sized him up; he was a squirrelly looking little guy, middle aged and balding with round glasses. I’m sure I could have taken him down if I had to. I picked up the cigarette butt and a calm aggression came over me. I told him that the Earth is not his personal ashtray, and I threw the smoldering butt back in his car. It landed squarely in the center of his empty passenger seat, burning a permanent mark into the upholstery. It was a classic moment of dementia, Dave style – frustration misdirected into something completely dangerous. So he was wimpy looking, what if he had a gun? What if he was crazier than me? Not likely, but both are ‘what ifs’ that should have been considered. Of course this didn’t register in my mind at the time. I calmly walked back to my car, the light turned green and I drove around him. Apparently he was too stunned to move. I glanced up in the rear-view mirror a moment later and I saw him drive off. He turned a corner about a block later and I never saw him again. For the rest of my commute to work I was busy thinking what I would say to the police, who I was sure were now looking for me. The best thing I could come up with was, “Officer, I was just returning his litter to him so that could dispose of it properly.” The insanity of this didn’t sink in until a few days later when I was replaying the events in my mind. I don’t think I did anything wrong or illegal, and anyone who flicks their cigarette butts out the window deserves whatever they get, but it was dangerous. I really wasn’t mad about the cigarette butt. It bugged me, but usually I deal with it. I had other things on my mind and I chose to vent my stress by confronting some stranger about something that he probably doesn’t even understand is wrong. He’s probably not thinking now that he shouldn’t litter, he’s just thinking that I’m a jerk. Oh well. I wish I could have come up with a better way to express to this guy that it was wrong for him to litter. Had I not been so focused on my problems of the day maybe I could have come up with something more effective, and less suicidal. So I’ve come out of this knowing that I need to find better ways to focus my frustration with life, and something to chuckle about. I’m just glad the police never found me.
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