Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Musings of a chain gang worker

I had the pleasure of working road side cleanup on Highway 23 East between St. Cloud and Foley this evening, part of our organization's participation in the "Adopt a Highway" program. When I volunteered to do this, I thought I was doing my part to beautify Minnesota, a state which although not a native, I have adopted as my home state. As a partner and I were trudging down the roadside ditch, cleaning the two-mile stretch, my sense of civic pride evntually started turning into one of first annoyance, and then outright disgust. Cups from McDonald's; newspapers; porno rags, hundreds of cigarette butts, cigarette packs by the score, beer cans, pop cans. And I thought, "What the hell am I doing here, picking up everybody else's garbage? Couldn't they just wait til they got to a garbage can at a gas station instead of just chucking the crap out their car window?

And it got me to thinking about all the times I have walked to the edge of my driveway when mowing the lawn, only to see at least a hundred cigarette butts strewn on my lawn and on road next to the curb to be picked up--every week (I live on a fairly busy throughway), and I thought, "Geeze, people--Do I go and take a friggen crap on your lawn?" And it got me to fantasizing about the day when I finally see someone chucking a cigarette butt out their car window, and my following them to their house, carrying a week's worth of residue from my four dogs, and dumping it on their doorstep. Aaahhh.... hey...a guy can dream, can't he?