Thank You For Not Littering

One cool thing about seeing life in terms of stories and pictures is that quite often, if you watch long enough, you discover amazing patterns.  When I say amazing I don’t necessarily mean awe-inspiring realizations but more the quixotic combinations that life forms from the amoeba to the human come up with to navigate their daily petri dish.




Jeff, myself and  Wendy the Cat

 It happens that I’ve spent the last four years living with smokers.  Back in Austin during my days with Jeff and Wendy, Parliament cigarettes were a food group at Casa del Pepe.  At home, at some else’s home or in a bar, the cigarette butts would be disposed of properly, but just out and about the butt would get tossed on the ground, maybe stepped on and left.  It made me crazy and in reply to my scolding to pick that litter up, I would be told that the butt on the ground represented a job for someone clearing the streets of trash in Austin.  Baloney, was my response.  Only sometimes would I pick up the butt, having to draw the line somewhere at just how much picking up I would do for someone I wasn’t legally responsible for, but I always put the empty cigarette packets in the recycling.  Eventually, butts were not tossed on the ground when we were out together and these days Jeff has more important things to put to his lips, like his beautiful pregnant wife and their precious little girl.

Jamie is also a smoker, though by American standards he is not only a light smoker but something of a throwback.  He rolls his own cigarettes and has for a long time.  The first time my dad saw Jamie pull out a pouch of tobacco and a paper he slapped his knee in amazement and said, “Now that takes me back.  My father used to roll his own.” Some people have that same reaction but the majority of folks here in the US who stumble upon this guy with tattoos and an accent fiddling with white paper and something leafy usually assume my husband is rolling a joint.  It can lead to some funny and sticky situations as you might imagine.  Twice at one outdoor concert, security guards told Jamie they didn’t care what was in the pouch, they didn’t want to see him rolling anything so he was left to covertly make his tobacco cigarettes while the drunk girls behind us spilled beer down my back and smoked their Marlboro Lights.

To his credit, Mr. Pearson is a stickler about disposing of his duff ends, even keeping them in his pocket (and subsequently into the washing machine!) if there’s no place to throw them away.  The odd thing is, it’s incredibly difficult to find hand-rolling tobacco these days and the stuff that is available is often horrid compared to even the cheapest tobacco that’s available in Britain.   Jamie’s favorite brand, Amber Leaf, is a Virginia or brightleaf tobacco, but it’s not available for purchase in the US despite its American origins, at least not that we have uncovered, even online.  Bless Jamie’s mum, Melody, for tucking a pouch of Amber Leaf and little filters into her Christmas box.  If he can’t get a “decent cup of tea or a decent pint of beer” then he can at least have a decent smoke.  (He’s just kidding about the tea and beer…mostly.)

One thing that is quickly evident if you happen to compare tobacco packaging from the US and the UK is that American tobacco producers are certainly doing the very least they have to where the obligatory health warning labels are concerned.  American warnings are printed quite small and put on the side of the pack where they won't get in the way.  When I first met Jamie in London and he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, I was flabbergasted at the words “Smoking Kills” taking up fully half of the front of the packet in large, screaming text.  Wow.  It’s not uncommon for the health warning to include graphic photos of mouth cancer, lung disease, at-risk fetuses and other complications associated with smoking plastered on the packaging.  If you are at all squeamish and considering taking up smoking, don’t start in the United Kingdom, kids.  Come to America.

As a non-smoker, I’d be just fine if no one ever smoked again.  I appreciate not having to eat in smoke-filled restaurant or not flying next to someone with a cigarette going.  I’ll speak up (sometimes) if I’m uncomfortable with the smoke you’re making me breathe in but for the most part your smoking is your business unless you are an idiot like the woman I saw today.

Let me first say that in my perfect world I would have access to things like motor vehicle records and DNA-based GPS for the purposes of tracking down people and offering them the chance to right their grievous wrongs perpetrated in my presence.  At the very least, I would have the wherewithal to join the YouTube nation of people filming things on their cell phones because isn’t far more embarrassing to have the whole world see what you casually do than to have one person point it out to you outside a hamburger shop? But I wasn't in my perfect world.  I was in Bradenton.

While sat at a table by the window waiting for our order of mind-blowing fabulousness at Five Guys Burgers and Fries, I noticed the two women at the picnic table outside.  They were both dressed quite elegantly in white linen blouses, smart-looking trousers, posh shoes and plenty of diamonds and gold to catch the mid-winter sun.  The taller of the two, a very attractive gal perhaps in her late sixties with perfectly highlighted blonde hair and a brilliant smile which she shared frequently with her companion, reached into her Coach bag, pulled out a package of Marlboro Lights and lit up.  It was like watching Lauren Becall having a burger and a smoke.  The cigarette was merely an extension of her exquisitely manicured performance.  Then she stood up, stretched her slim torso and tossed the cigarette butt on the sidewalk.  A quick grinding out of the last ashes with a practiced and elegantly-clad toe finished her act and she stepped around the butt, around the trash can that was three feet from her table and came inside to powder her nose.

I was beside myself with disgust and immediately began weighing my options as to what to do when she came out of the bathroom.  But then the burger and fries arrived and I was reduced to just watching the offender saunter back outside and join her companion in lighting up another Marlboro. Moral outrage is no match for half a double cheese and bacon burger and hand-cut French fries.  I briefed Jamie on the situation developing at the picnic table and by turns we scrutinized the women between mouthfuls of beef and careful monitoring of the ketchup to fries ratio infront of us.  I was very nearly in my happy place when the ladies beyond the glass started gathering up their things to leave, having tossed their finished cigarettes on the ground.  Purses were casually deposited on shoulders.  Extra napkins were wrapped around soda cups to catch the condensation, saving clothes and upholstery from moisture stains.  Both women slid their large Chanel sunglasses down to cover their eyes and stepped lightly off the curb towards their car.  But then the taller woman turned around, fumbling with her keys and the Marlboro Light packet she was trying to carry in one hand.  She took a few graceful steps back towards the restaurant and placed the empty cigarette package deftly in the trash can.

Thank you for not littering.