September 1998
s m u g
feature
by Dan Reines

Put Litter in its place --
on the side of the road

Alright, enough bullshit.

That's right, that's what I said. Enough bullshit. For years now, I've been the good little PC soldier. I've done every God damned thing you granola-headed hippies have asked of me, and I've done it all with a concerned brow and a neutered, sensitive-boy smile. I've been a tree-hugger's wet friggin' dream, is what I've been, but no more. No sirree, I'm done with that crap.

You know what I did? I gave up my tuna melts. Yep: Every Thursday afternoon for the first thirty five-years of my life, I sat on the same friggin' park bench under the same friggin' tree and ate a tuna melt with a Mr. Pibb. And then one day some hairy-legged jezebel walks up to me and starts going on about the poor little dolphins, and about how the big, bad, tuna industry is slaughtering them like, well, like tuna. And I'm just helping them do it, is what I'm doing. Well fine. I got enough problems anyway. The last thing I need is Flipper's blood on my hands. So big deal. No more tuna.

Was that enough? Oh no. No no no. Because I tell you what, you let one little strand of PC hyper-sensitivity into your world, and it's all downhill from there, brother. Next thing I know, I'm carpooling to work. I'm sorting paper from plastic from tin foil. I'm reading Toni Morrison. When I say Spanish names, I say them with a Latin accent, but when I say "egg roll," I no longer say it with a Chinese accent. I do all the right things. I kill my television.

It gets worse. By about mid-'95, I stop driving altogether. I boycott grapes. I actively seek out interracial relationships. As recently as last year, both me and Tamisha, my girlfriend at the time, were telling people we're queer, even though neither of us has ever been in a queer relationship. Hell, we didn't even really like each other. I was, for all intents and purposes, a PC poster child.

Well guess what? Those days are over. That's right, Crunchy, I'm putting my foot down. Dan Reines is Sensitive Boy no more. From this day on, I'm standing up for what I believe in. And what I believe in is littering.

Yeah. Littering.

Surprised, are you? Methinks you've been brainwashed by the PC Police. I mean, why is littering so evil, really? If you ask me, it's a simple matter of personal freedom. Let's say you drive a lot. Let's say you drive so much - as much as an hour or two in a stretch - that you get thirsty. You buy yourself a soda. You drink it. You finish it. Now you have an empty cup, a big, ugly, empty container that you don't want to sit next to for the next hour and a half. So what are you going to do? Keep it?

The hell you will. But that's exactly what the enviro-wackos would have you do. They want you to ride around with a bunch of filthy, unsanitary trash in your car just because Kenny the Camper doesn't want a bunch of food wrappers on the ground around his tent. Well I got news for you, Camper Boy: Ever since they invented air conditioning, those car windows are good for one thing, and that's throwing crap out of them. You want your little campground to be so spotless, I suggest you quit the car-camping, pick up your tent, and hike, you lazy son of a bitch!

Me, I blame that Indian guy, the weepy one from that commercial in the '70s. You know the one: Car drives by, passengers toss some excess baggage overboard - as is their God-given right - and Chief Running Tears gets all worked up about it. Before that spot, folks were free to litter and no one thought twice about it. It was practically the national pastime, for crying out loud - as American as apple pie and scapegoating the Indians. But now?

Now it's like you're some kind of leper if you so much as leave a McNuggets box under your car before you drive out of the parking lot. Now, smokers get shouted down by neurotic neat freaks for tossing a friggin' inch-long butt in the gutter.

It's oppression, is what it is. Listen to the language of the anti-littering fascists. Litterbug. Oh I get it. So just because you crumple up some hippie's communist leaflet and kick it to the curb, all of a sudden you're a lower life form - an insect. Slob. That's not much better, is it? Polluter. Defiler. Barbarian.

Even the word litter comes from the Latin lectus, which means "lie." Yeah, exactly. Say you happen to leave a mattress next to the freeway, or tuck an old end table under your neighbor's shrubbery. The PC Commando Force will say you're a litterer, but what they're really saying is that you're a liar. They don't even know you! Are you going to take that crap?

Not me, Mister. I say it's time we fight back, time we stand up against the eco-freaks, if not for ourselves, then for the sakes of our children and grandchildren. I say we hunt down that Woodsy the Owl bastard and give him a hoot, right where he friggin' breathes!

Say it, and say it loud, I litter, and I'm proud!

Oh, and one more thing: If dolphins are supposed to be so damn smart, why doesn't someone just tell them to stay the hell away from the tuna nets, so that I can get back to my damn sandwich?

gordito@smug.com

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