Looking at the title of this post, I realize “litter” could be read as a noun or a verb…I guess I could mean both. Y’know, like the word “cook” is a noun or a verb.
In the case of it being a noun, “lazy people” would modify the word – telling us just what type of litter it is; as in: “Look at all the lazy people litter out here, sheesh people, is it that hard to walk your garbage ten feet to a trash can? Obviously it must be, since they can’t walk ten feet to put their shopping cart away either. Sometimes you get the double whammy: a really lazy person who not only couldn’t take the time to throw out their nasty tissue/big gulp cup/UPOG (unidentified piece of garbage) but rather just tossed into their cart, then left said cart sitting in the parking lot before hopping into their trash filled minivan. Oh wait, their car won’t be filled with trash because they routinely toss it out the window while driving…or – one of my favorites (that’s sarcasm here, by favorite, I mean most likely to really irritate me. Really.) – pull into a parking spot, open their car door, and drop a pile of trash on the ground (it’s under my car! nobody will know!) before heading into a store which probably contains a plethora of places to properly dispose of that pile.
If you’ve ever tried to pull into a parking spot, only to discover a shopping cart taking up half the space…or while walking through a parking lot had to zig-zag to avoid a soiled diaper just sitting on the asphalt…or went to grab a cart only to find a wad of upog that you really wished you had a pair of tongs to remove…then you understand my pain.
The verb form is obvious: lazy people litter all the time, as my daughter often observes. I fear my disgust for the lazy people of the world (shared by my husband) has clearly had an effect on her. Though I’d prefer it if she didn’t publicly chastise perpetrators, I’m glad she has learned the simple grace of being respectful of the world we live in and others in it. Because really in a lot of ways, littering is a simple matter of disrespect. When you litter, you mar the beauty of your surroundings, and you make more work for somebody else – whether it be the next person to park where you did (who isn’t also a lazy person that would not only leave the cart right where you left it, but add a few upog to your pile as well), or the cart dude who has to round up all those carts (“But that’s his job! a lazy person will whine…no your job is to put the cart in the corral – his job is to collect them from the corral and bring them back in to the store).
Miss A was reflecting on “lazy people litter” in the car the other day. Thinking of all the things one may toss from the window, she told me, “They better watch out if they litter with something like a receipt from the library check out. Because then the police have your name and will know where you live.”
Ah, if only it were quite so simple.
But beware you lazy litterers of the world, A.J. is watching you.
And if I were you, I’d throw those library check out receipts in a trash can.
Melonie Johnson 