The world is my ashtray (nsc)

[Big Bob]

I had my last final exam of the semester today, and as I finished I was in a great mood. It took a while to get out of the town of Dartmouth as seemingly half of the people from Southeastern MA are all packed within one square mile around the Dartmouth mall (The other half are at the Taunton mall) fighting for the next open parking spot in the most distant corner of the parking lot. But this blatant overcommercialization of Christmas was not going to bother me today. Not by a longshot. I was about to start a relaxing holiday season full of lovely people and lovely music and lovely food.

Merrily, I went along my way after surviving the horde of shoppers. As I was rolling home, dancing with the rabbits along a stretch of country road, I passed a man in an SUV with a big "BOYCOTT FRANCE!" bumper sticker, but I liked to think that my JFJO "A true patriot questions our lying government" bumper sticker cancelled his out.

Still smiling, I was trailing a big blue hummer with two men puffing on humongous cigars. As we approached a chain gang cleaning up rubbish on the side of 195, trash came flying out of the window of the hummer towards the men in the orange uniforms.

I stopped smiling. Something about that image completely bothered me. These men in the hummer decided that it was not enough to unneccisarily polute the air by driving a hummer on the smoothest paved roads in the world, but they needed to throw their chewing tobacco cans out of the window at the men considered unfit for civilization who are cleaning up after 'decent' Americans. The can seemed to land behind the clean-up crew, so most likely it didnt knock any of them in the head, but it probably did not get picked up.

Whatever the men did to get put in jail, at this moment they were doing a service for the community. To possibly injure one of them, to add to their workload, or to negate the hard work that they just put in to cleaning up our mess made me sick. I wanted nothing less than for the police van to pull the hummer over and make the men join the inmates and finish cleaning up the remainder of the highway, but of course that didn't happen. I had an urge to honk at the hummer or flip them off or something, but I didn't (either because I realized that it would solve nothing or because I was afraid that they would crush my little car like a bug).

There isn't any particular point to this post. I just felt like ranting about the situation. If anyone knows a way to knock some sense into human beings, please let me know. Also, we must continue to knock some sense into ourselves because we all must improve ourselves to some extent. I'm trying, though probably not hard enough. I'll keep at it.

Peace, love, and merry winter days to all. It may be cold, but enjoy the winter while it still exists.

[hoby]

My blood pressure went up just reading about your experience.

I have no solutions, but I can recommend a book you might enjoy:

Sick Puppy by Carl Hiassen

The protagonist is someone who does all the things I (and maybe you) have dreamt of when confronted with behavior such as you describe.

Peace,

hoby

[Phrazz]

There are all kinds of ways to make things better, but hard to deal with the specific situation "head on". War is not the answer. Do something good for someone and it will come back around. People throw stuff out the window all the time. Getting angry won't make it any better. Enjoy your time with family and friends because every day may be your last. Don't sweat the small stuff. Your bumper sticker is much cooler.

-Peace,

Phrazz

[tyler]

Big Bob, do you go to UMD? just curious since I live in Dartmouth myself. Small Slip world.

[diesel]

sometimes i wish i had a car similar to the one in 'spyhunter' the video game, the old school version, with machine guns and missile launchers. yeah that would be cool. i guess i wouldnt have blown up the hummer, but at least shot out his tires. maybe one day...

and that jfjo sticker is awesome.