(You're) Motorin'

When B-Rad approached me with the idea of killing off this humble corner of the web, I simply replied, "Kill it." I'm glad he decided against it, though I'm not really sure what I plan to do with my newly granted administrative priveleges. I'm not one to pour out my inner-most thoughts to many - much less on the not-so-anonymous web.

Some might be surprised that as a youth, I was a rather rabid follower of the political goings-on in the country. I thought it was good to be up on the issues, and as I was rather youthful, I thought it bode well for my future as a father and such. How ironic, then, that by the time I actually had kids, I could pretty much give a rats-ass what was going on day-to-day in DC. The Clinton years pretty much wore me down, and though it would be a few more years until George W. Bush was elected, by then, I felt that things were looking up. After all, adults were back in the White House. Don't get me wrong, I vote in the elections (to include primaries and mid-terms), and such, but that's pretty mucy the extent of my involvement in the political process.

So, maybe this isn't really political, but as I was out driving the paved roads of G-Vegas today, I came upon a vehicle at a stop light, and it caught my eye: it was a Prius hybrid. The car of choice of the left-wing do-gooder. The car that does nothing to help the environment, but let's the owner pat himself on the back whenever he needs an ego boost. I know I've seen a few before, but something intrigued me this time. It was a car length or so in front of me, in the next lane, I couldn't help but wonder who was driving it. There were three or four red-lights in the upcoming stretch, so I was confident that I'd see the driver at some point. (This is the point where I mention that his left turn signal was on, implying he wanted to make a lane-change. Not today, buddy. Or crunchy chick.)

Then I saw it - the drivers window was own, arm dangling out. Dangling... dangling... dangling... a cigarette. I could now narrow it down - seeing the hairy appendage, I could deduce that there was an 85% chance that the driver was a male. 15% that it was a crunchy chick. As traffic began moving, I confirmed that there was an older male pressing the pedal to the Li-Ion cells. Crunchy little wife in the passenger seat. Fuzzy, yellow dice hanging from the mirror. Yes, fuzzy yellow dice.

So we're at the next red light, and it happened. Yet again, Mr. Environmentally Conscious is in the lane to the right of me, car-length a head and he takes a drag on the cigarette, dangles his arm out one last time... and drops the smoking butt on the ground. Money shot!

This bugs the hell out of me. I really don't have as big of a problem smokers as others, but I don't want to pull up to any of the many medians around the Upstate, and see where they have emptied their ashtrays into the streets. There are places I've seen with thousands of cigarette butts laying around. And I don't want to see them thrown from their windows going down the road, either.

Then it occurred to me that I've heard commercials promoting clean roads in South Carolina and some hotline to call when you see someone litter, so I jotted down Mr. Prius' tag number and the next time I was in front of the laptop, did a search and came up with this. I looked all over the page for an online form to report the errant butt and, finding none, realized that I was actually going to have to pick up the phone, dial a number to report it. Jeez, what next? Am I going to have to actually have to talk to a live person and tell them that some bozo threw a cigarette butt out his window?

Yes and yes. And, yes I did.

After all that effort on my part, Mr. Holier Than Thou Pius Hybrid Owner is going to be getting this in the mail, informing him that he's a litterbug.

I just hope he gets it the same day his car payment is due, Al Gore hits him up for a political donation - and his Prius battery dies an untimely death.