Is All the World an Ashtray?

This morning I got up and dragged my garbage cans out to the end of my driveway so that the guys in the big truck would carry away the trash that my family had collected and cleaned out of our house during the previous week. While out there I happened to look down and there on the ground just inside where my pavement meets the city’s was a small, white cigarette butt. Finding that little butt there ticks me off. Now, you might say, that isn’t any big deal. It’s just one little cigarette butt. However, what you don’t know is that I have been finding those little, white cigarette butts at the end of my driveway for years! Someone, who lives somewhere in my area seems to think that my driveway is his or her personal ashtray.

Is that such an unusual thing? Have you ever taken the time to look down as you walk ANYWHERE? The next time that you are sitting at a red light, take the time to gander at all of the burned out butts that line the curbs. I’ve hiked for miles up rigorous trails; trails that as a young non-smoker seemed very tough, only to find someone’s cigarette butts scattered around. How do they do that?

One time, I was driving my dad’s old ’68 Chevy Nova down a street in Anderson, Indiana. This car had those wings on the front edge of the front windows that you could open and turn out to direct fresh air into the car. It was a hot day so I had them fully opened. A guy went past me going in the other direction and tossed his cigarette out. It landed in the middle of my windshield and proceeded to slide across to my side of the car. It hit the wing and the wind pushed it right into my lap. I nearly crashed the car trying to get that lit cigarette out from between my legs.

Another time, I was sitting in a car waiting for someone to come out of a grocery store. Across from me was a guy smoking in his car. Fair enough. He wasn’t hurting anyone but himself I guess. Then he did something that I don’t think is all that uncommon, but makes absolutely no sense to me. He took a full ashtray of spent butts from his car and proceeded to dump them out on the parking lot. Why bother to collect them if you are going to just dump them on the ground anyway?

What is it with smokers? Why do they feel entitled to pollute our world with the remnants of their nasty habit? Why do they seem to think that all the world is their personal ashtray?