Apologies to Pigs

I'm an alien. I must be, because I am so, so different from the people around me. Why, for example, do people insist on littering, not recycling and otherwise being lazy with things for which they are responsible? Exhibit I: Moronic muscleheads at the gym toss their plastic bottles into the trash, though I suppose that one can be excused because most of these guys, based on my interactions with them, are completely brainless and self-absorbed. (This is not sour grapes, by the way; I'm no musclehead, but I do keep myself in better shape than most.)

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Exhibit II: I ran in the Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure in downtown Philadelphia last weekend. It was a great experience, despite the flare-up in my wonky knee, complete with its share of do-gooding and generous companies offering free stuff to mostly appreciative participants. Yet, again, people leave their trash and otherwise unused freebies wherever they see fit: a half-eaten pretzel on the Art Museum steps, a bottle of water left at the "Rocky" statue's feet, etc. I suppose people figure picking up their own refuse and disposing of it properly should be someone else's problem ... and it ultimately becomes just that. I know everyone has things on their mind and everyone has problems, but how much sense does it take to not leave trash behind? It requires no thought and next to no action. It should be automatic.

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I'm no better than anyone else, of course. I have my own issues which must make other people want to yank out clumps of their own hair. But why ... why ... why litter? It infuriates me. Don't even get me started on smokers who toss their butts out their car windows or, even worse, idiots who leave still-burning butts in the middle of the woods, perilously close to tons of tinder in the form of fallen twigs and leaf litter. Then there are the smokers down the Jersey Shore who see the sand as one big ashtray. But I don't want to pick solely on smokers. I've seen countless pieces of left-behind trash at the Shore: used diapers, empty cans of Sunkist, grease-sopped pizza boxes, you name it. Why? So the seagulls can have something to chew on? So sea turtles can choke on it? So small children will have something to play with? So other people can have jobs cleaning up after troves of human pigs on vacation? WTF?

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May a demon rise from the pits of hell and @#$% them in the rear end! Twice!