What Really Grinds My Gears

You know what REALLY grinds my gears?

Littering.

And Holy Mother of Jesus people do it around here a lot. I didn't notice it at first because you almost never see someone litter, you just see the repercussion of it along the side of the road. The littering pandemic in Eufaula was brought to my attention about 2 weeks ago. It was a Friday and I had just turned off the main Highway and was heading to pick up Nick for lunch. I noticed a crew of about 4 guys, in those horrid Oklahoma State (boooo) colored vests, picking up trash along the side of the road. When I came back after lunch they had finished picking up the trash and were mowing the grass along the side of the road. I noticed how nice the grass looked, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why I thought it looked so good. As soon as we turned down that road on Monday I figured it out. There was trash EVERYWHERE. It was like the crew hadn't even been there, the sheer amount of trash that had accumulated over the weekend was astounding. There were beer cans, soda bottles, fast food bags and even full bags of trash. Ever since then, every time I drive down that mile and a half stretch of road I am just blown away by the amount of trash that people are throwing out of their car, and it really, really grinds me gears. 

Yesterday I witnessed a blatant act of littering for the first time. I had just dropped Nick off at work and the guy in front of me threw a coffee cup out his window. Can you guess what kind of vehicle he was driving? A Barbour County Garbage Truck. Yep, the garbage man was littering. If he hadn't turned off the road I was going to pull up next to him at the light, look him straight in the eye, point at him, mouth the words "you suck" and then give him the thumbs down. It wasn't a great plan, and it would probably just either confuse the garbage man, or make him laugh. But, that started me thinking about what I would actually do if I saw someone littering again. A simple thumbs down or even the middle finger probably wouldn't get the message through to them, so I had to come up with something a little more creative. And this is what I came up with...

The next time I see someone blatantly littering I am going to take note of their car and license plate number, pull over, pick up their trash, hunt down their car and throw the trash on top of their car (if they leave their windows down then you can bet your ass I'm throwing it inside their car). I will also be leaving a note that say " Littering: Disgusting, isn't it?".

It's a perfect plan because

A. It's not illegal (I'm just a concerned citizen returning an item that I saw that person drop)

B. The person littering will most likely NEVER forget the message.

C. They will tell everyone they know what happened and soon the entire community will be scared to litter because they don't want a fried chicken bucket to be thrown in their front seat. 

I've already told Nick about this plan and he was only slightly amused, and mostly horrified that I might will go through with this, if given the opportunity. He said he's not sure what is more creepy about my plan, having trash you threw out of your window 3 miles down the road show up on your hood at the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, or the psychotic note that you would find stuck to your windshield. It's probably both.