BVEGAN was on Route 28 with me the other day and I couldn’t help but notice her enthusiasm for animal issues. She loves her shelter dog and opposes puppy farms, and kudos to her for it. She’s a vegan and thinks it’s the humane alternative and, well, I don’t share her convictions beyond abstaining from veal, but good for her if she wants to make that kind of choice in her life.
And, as you can see in the picture, BVEGAN is a smoker.
I took the picture for my vanity plate collection because the irony made me smile. No red meat festering in your colon, but those lungs probably look a sight. I also wondered if she’d ever considered the environmental impacts of tobacco farming, which Dr Quandt seems to think is negative, but I’m on the fence about that. Then again, she probably didn’t care about environmental impact given what she did next.
BVEGAN pitched her cigarette butt out the window, and threw her hand below the seat to find her vape.
So I figured I’d help her get the attention she deserves as a littering jerk scumbag rather than just someone whose little hypocrisies (and let’s face it – we all have them) gave me a grin. It’s nice that you think you’re concerned about animal welfare, BVEGAN, but in practice you’re not. Cigarette butts are a plastic, slow to degrade and harmful to animals even beyond the birds and turtles that mistake them for food and choke to death. This puts aside the fact that you’re making the world suck a little more for us animals who like to enjoy what unblemished nature we can find. Not that you can find much of it where there’s not a cigarette butt lying around.
Want to further demonstrate your commitment to environmental issues, BVEGAN, aside from bumper stickers imploring me to make the humane choice and give up animal flesh and a $5 vanity plate? Next time you’re finished with a cigarette, take a look towards the center of your car’s dash, or maybe the center console. There’s this neat thing – kinda new, you might not have heard of it – called an ASHTRAY. Stub your butt out there. It conveniently collects them until you empty them out into an approved trash receptacle, minimizing litter and it even has the positive side effect of reducing the chance that you’ll cause a fire with your still lit butt.
If you’re not real fond of this idea because you don’t want ugly trash stinking up your car, well, now you know how the rest of us feel about our lawns, rivers, ponds and sidewalks.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.
Hmm, guess I just did.
My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.
