[Sauvblanc]

..is a litterbug who has the audacity to lie about it. Sorry, I gotta vent...

I've had a few episodes lately where I have seen people drop things on the ground, or, in one case, toss a coathanger into the rear stairwell of a tram door leading to the door jamming and requiring 5 mins of effort between myself and the tram driver to work the coathanger free and unjam the door.

In pretty much every single case, after I politely point out that they dropped something, they reply, "It wasn't me". In most cases a rubbish bin is mere feet away from the offender which makes this a double fail.

WTF is wrong with people??!! How can they have the balls to flat out lie when they've done it in full view of several people? How much of a selfish asshole do you have to be to do something like that? I'm usually so stunned that I can't think of a proper retort.

I know there's bigger problems in the world yadda yadda yadda but this one steams my shorts. Particularly since I take my dog to the beach all the time and it gets disheartening seeing all the trash that washes up that we have to walk through.

[Kickaha]

Pick it up, run after them, yelling "Excuse me! I think you dropped this!" and hand it back to them.

You're the nice person returning something, to any passerby, and 9 times out of 10, they will be publicly shamed into taking it from you.

*THEN* loudly say "And next time, find a trash can."

Also works with a fresh pile of their dog's crap shoved into their hand that you picked up with a plastic bag. Of course, you didn't put it *into* the bag...

Not that I would *ever* do anything like that. Nope, nope.

[Robo]

Originally Posted by Kickaha Pick it up, run after them, yelling "Excuse me! I think you dropped this!" and hand it back to them.

I always do this. When I worked at a mall about once a month we would have some church group come through and tract-bomb all the stores, which is like littering, only for Jesus. I would always chase them down and politely give them back the tracts they "accidentally" dropped. Unless they were Chick tracts, in which case all the employees would snatch them up and read them for the lolz. We traded them, with the shoe store next door and the jeweler down the way.

[pscates2.0]

Litterbugs are the worst. Just something supremely dickheaded about using the world as your convenient, on-the-go wastebasket. Chances are, wherever you're going has a garbage can of some sort. Can't you just hold onto your garbage until you reach it and then toss it in? I've seen people driving down the road and will just fling out an entire McDonald's or Burger King bag from their moving car.



Seriously? Are you that much of a clueless loser-at-life? Almost always it's some low-rent jackass in a complete beater car, so I find it tough to believe they're doing it to keep their interior "clean" and "mint condition".



I've called people on it a few times, but these days it's rarely worth the trouble...it'll either be some loud, crazy woman who'll want to get into your face and cause a scene (too much Springer viewing), or, if it's a guy and he's with his s.o., he'll have to go into bad-ass/he-man mode and put on a little show for his woman. Bless their hearts, they deserve each other (they're probably punishing each other enough as it is, having to bang each other, why do I need to get involved).

But, yeah...litterbugs truly suck. They suck because it's such an easy, easy thing not to do. When I see it happen, of course I get mad about the littering itself. But I get just as mad at what it says about a person...how they think, how they see the world, how lazy they are, how ignorant they can be, etc. Trust me...someone throwing their trash down on the ground (or out a moving car), you can pretty much run an accurate profile on them and predict/describe at least 15-20 other levels of shitheadedness they're engaged in. Guaranteed. These traits tend to cluster and run together. I've done the field research and analysis enough to know. You don't get to a ninth-level People-Watcher® without learning a few dozen things...



If you're walking, or driving along, and you're incapable of keeping your trash with you until you reach a trashcan of some sort, then you're a worthless twat and a waste of good oxygen. No exceptions, no ifs/ands/buts. Go to hell. Twice.

[addabox]

Here in Oakland it's apparently just a stone rule that, when getting fast food at the car window, you immediately toss out anything you don't want-- receipt, straw wrappers, extra napkins, ketchup packets, etc.

I was once behind a car load of girls watching the inevitable rain of shit come flying out the windows and just sort of yelled out my window "Don't throw shit out the window!" I was rewarded for my efforts by a shrill hail of obscenities and then they started throwing pennies at my car. Needless to say, here in Oakland advising folks that they dropped something is suicidal.

[pscates2.0]

People, all on their own, can suck. Gallons. But get three or more like-minded pudwhacks together in a group and you're going to be on the losing end, no matter what. They'll take turns validating each other's awesomeness (and your dickheadedness), and you'll be lucky a few pennies tossed your way is all you get for your troubles.

The a-holes set the pace these days, I fear. You're somehow the weirdo/square/asshole/busybody/problem should you attempt to hold anyone to any sort of "it shouldn't be this way" standard. I, for one, can only piss uphill for so long before I just realize it's not really worth the effort and struggle, and just quietly put my wang back in my pants and leave the world to itself.

[Elysium]

I live on busy stretch of road and I am constantly picking up litter from my yard due to the twats and d-bags that decide that it is ok to throw their fast food, cigarette cartons, water bottles, etc form their car windows.

I've been burned (literally) by lit cigarettes that are tossed from a moving car while driving down the interstate.

People suck...

[pscates2.0]

Yeah, I live on a busy road too. When my mailbox isn't getting knocked over, I'm often out there picking up fast-food bags and cups, beer bottles (sometimes broken, should their aim suck and they hit the driveway instead of the grass), candy/gum wrappers and all the rest.

Was out there just last night, in fact, picking up stuff. Always a joy.

Such a dick move, throwing your junk into the yard of a stranger. Pretty high up on the "ball-less, white trash coward" list, if you ask me.

[drewprops]

I hope there's a special level of hell in which litterbugs spend several millenia picking up Satan's garbage.



...

[pscates2.0]

There has to be...

I hope they have a live webcam too.

[Robo]

OK. So.

I live in an apartment, and from the window in front of me I can see the highway and watch all the cars and motorcycles go by, which is usually fun but now sort of depressing. But anyway, to the left of me — to the immediate west of my apartment complex — is a field that they city is turning into a small park.

They were supposed to finish it years ago but, you know, the recession happened. Anyway, they're finally starting work on it now and they cut the very long grass this spring. The very first thing they installed was a post that had a dispenser for doggie doodoo bags. This makes sense, I mean when the grass was long people would just let their dogs shit wherever, and I'm sure the people landscaping the park aren't going to want to deal with tons of poop.

Anyway, so I was walking by this park, because I can do that now, and I see a voluminous woman with a tiny dog. The dog is taking a crap right in front of the post with the doodoo bag dispenser. The vast woman is staring directly at the dispenser, reading the sign on it or something, but she doesn't take a doodoo bag.

That made me UPPERCASE MAD. I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to swear at her. I wanted to call her a see you next Tuesday, which is a word I never ever say.

But seriously! There are going to be people working really hard on hot summer days to turn that field into a park so the neighborhood kids finally have a place to play that is not in the street. The least you can do is pick up your dog's shit! There is a bag dispenser RIGHT THERE.

Sorry but that makes me . I really want to, like, play Frisbee in this park, when I'm all the way better, and I don't want to have to dodge poops. And I feel bad for the dog, stuck with such an irresponsible owner

[billybobsky]

What's up with the voluminous people in the PNW? Is there something in the air that causes them to want to eat more food than they need? I ask because as a denizen of the former fattest city in the US, given to us because the AVERAGE weight of a citizen was much higher than the average us weight, I have never seen so many truly rotund people as I have on my various trips to the PNW. It has crossed my mind that the non-rotund people are simply that way because the others eat so much food there's barely a scrap to fight over.

[Robo]

Hmm. On all the maps I've seen, the PNW isn't particularly overweight (compared to, you know, the rest of the USA). Do you live in Colorado? Because EVERY state is unhealthy compared to Colorado, haha.

The so-called Diabetes Belt matches the Jesus Belt and the Walmart Belt (and, perhaps ironically, the Opposed to Health Care Belt) in the American South. That's how you know they're fat, they have to keep on going through so many damn BELTS.

(Obligatory justkiddingiloveyouguys so nobody gets upset <3 <3)

[Kickaha]

Heh.

While we have a huge amount of outdoorsy folks who spend weekends hiking, kayaking, and skiing, we also have a rather large sedentary geek population.

In addition, there's a pretty sharp divide between the blue cities and the red rural areas, which tend to be rather poor. Poor almost always means poor nutrition, which given the current state of additives and such in cheap food, is a fast track to obesity.

There are other factors, and certain ethnic groups have a harder time than some due to both dietary mismatches and socioeconomic forces, but overall, the average is pulled down quite a bit by the crazy amounts of people taking advantage of our outdoors.

The rest are doing everything they can to *avoid* the outdoors. Something to do about 'rain' and 'lack of sun', but I can't say I understand such crazy mutterings myself...

[Moogs]

Originally Posted by addabox Here in Oakland it's apparently just a stone rule that, when getting fast food at the car window, you immediately toss out anything you don't want-- receipt, straw wrappers, extra napkins, ketchup packets, etc. I was once behind a car load of girls watching the inevitable rain of shit come flying out the windows and just sort of yelled out my window "Don't throw shit out the window!" I was rewarded for my efforts by a shrill hail of obscenities and then they started throwing pennies at my car. Needless to say, here in Oakland advising folks that they dropped something is suicidal.

I've seen a couple college-age girls do the same thing here in Illinois but it was a long time ago. They finished with their mickey D's and then proceeded to throw the entire bag of crap out their window, onto a major highway, in broad daylight. Fucking white trash. Every time they reproduce, angels weep and the FSM looses a noodle.

[alcimedes]

On three different occasions, when sitting at a left turn that I know is going to be a long wait, I've gotten out of the car to hand burning cig. butts back to the people who tossed them out the window.

I don't do it any more, I've got kids and the last thing I need is some jerk flipping out over it, but people were always very sheepish when taking them back.