Noticing all the Butts

[Zamazam]

Nope, this isn't a backside appreciation thread, but one that touches on litter and how it messes up the scene.

I park in a lot about 4 blocks from where I work. I like the walk in the morning plus I can take a stroll through a small park with a really great ornamental garden all around. The problem is at the center of that small park is a couple benches, a marble table with a chessboard on it, and tons and tons of cigarette butts, used rubbers. The Chessboard and benches are great, perfect shady spot for a game or two, or to chew the fat with someone during a break or lunch. The nasty problem is all the litter and cig butts, I see a guy every morning sweeping up the used rubbers, trash, and cig butts. At lunch time, there is a freaking pile of butts again, garbage all over the place despite no smoking signs.

This morning I found out that the city is going to be pulling the benches and Chess table from the park because it's become a hangout for Neer'do wells.

Now that I'm smoke free going on 5 years, I am noticing the small things like how cig butts are all over the place, how some folks douse themselves in perfume and cologne to hid the cig smell, only to smell like an OD of perfume or cologne mixed in with rancid cig smell.

What bothers me the most about myself is 5 years ago, I would have tossed a cig on the ground and snuffed it out with my shoe in the same park.

 

[Teresa P]

Oh yeah.....when someone comes in the restaurant where I work, not only can I tell you if they smoke but I can also tell you about when they had their last one. I remember dashing out the back door for a few quick drags during the rush to keep from going crazy and then popping a peppermint in my mouth so no one would "know." Now I smell the smoke on others when they do that and laugh at myself.....what was I thinking?
Three months after I quit, I could still smell it in my car. Didn't matter how often I vacuumed or what I cleaned it with, sprayed it with, it still smelled like an ashtray on wheels. Nasty. Now I have a vehicle that has never been smoked in and it's so nice...
And I'm still running across things I've had packed away in boxes for a few years, things I'm just getting around to sorting through, and some are sticky and yellow. That nasty, smelly residue from where I used to smoke in the house (and damned if anybody would ever tell me I couldn't smoke in my own house).....I can't believe I ever smelled like that by choice.
What really angers me is seeing the butts scattered on the ground anywhere because they're usually right beside an ash can.