ust because I think littering should be punishable by death doesn’t mean I’m an unreasonable person.
I leave tips at restaurants. I smile when dogs get on public transport. Sometimes, I cry during sitcoms.
I also have a freshly-oiled chainsaw in my garage. But most suburbanites do.
The suburbs are not usually places where one expects to find litter.
That’s not because everyone here lives out that episode from “The X-Files” where a garbage monster kills people who put up tacky decorations.
It’d be cool if that were a thing. It’d also save me a lot of work. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.
I’ve just spent enough time picking other people’s rubbish out of my lawn that I’m considering installing landmines in place of the sprinkler system.
You might argue that suburbs are no place for landmines. And you’re right. They’d be much more effective in cities.
Let us be clear. The people who can’t bother making it to a trash can before they grind what’s left of their pizza into the sidewalk are not good people.
They don’t work to cure cancer, or volunteer with the elderly, or write humor columns. They just make clean places dirty.
So if we had something more compelling than anti-littering fines that never get paid, you’d merely observe a brief besplattering. Then the sidewalks would stay clean. Permanently.
Look, I offered a solution. I didn’t say it was a good one. Once you think about it, it isn’t really that humane. Also, it wouldn’t work at scale.
Copyright 2024 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.