Monday, April 28, 2008

The earth is not your ashtray

I have a general bias against bumper stickers, because they're so shouty, for one, and for two, usually pretty punny. And some really high percentage have grammatical errors. Lots are pretty bad, but I really hate the grandparent one:

It illustrates another general problem with bumper stickers - that they don't make sense. And they don't believe in contractions. And they wreck your paint. And people always have them on crooked for time immemorial, because they don't come off. Don't you hate when you see a new one and you laugh to yourself (or out loud) and then you're just so BUGGED that you gave them the satisfaction?

But I swear I would put that first one on every inch of my Audi if it would stop people from throwing their cigarette butts out the window. There's some law of physics that says they have to land in the middle of the lane where they sit there, burning, while I drive my car over them. Something that's ON FIRE. No matter how many times you try to convince me that my car isn't going to blow up, for a few seconds I panic, and I always will, because isn't there at least a remote possibility that if a burning object bounces up into just the right place in your undercarriage, something bad might happen? Also, if the California forest fires aren't enough, I don't know what is.

Put. It. In. The. Ashtray, you dirty littering pig.

I loved it when that one time Maxie from General Hospital got arrested for a DUI after she tossed her butt out the window and they pulled her over for littering.

I demand more justice.

3 comments:

Lima Bean said...

Would you say there are more smokers per capita in NC than in other places? I just wonder because I can't remember the last time I saw someone throwing a cigarette butt onto the road. It would drive me crazy as well.

Can you search the place you found those virtual bumper stickers for one that says "I am the proud parent of a Nelson Roadrunner honor student"? Can you believe mom and dad actually put those on their cars? They are bumper sticker people, kind of, which is weird.

Lis said...

Well, cigarettes in NC are the among cheapest in the nation, because we have low taxes thanks to the tobacco lobby.

I think I see someone do it at least once per day, usually on Jones Ferry Road, usually late at night.

Lis said...

. . . among the cheapest . . . sheesh.