Throwing a piece of gum out the window.
Tossing a wrapper from a Hershey’s Kisses on the ground.
I never really thought twice about these things. But then I moved to Los Angeles where my whole outlook changed.
I’m sitting here typing with an injured forefinger, pissed off because Buttercup bit it moments ago on our nightly walk. It’s not extremely bad. She bit it hard enough to make it bleed for a few seconds and it will probably show signs of bruising in the morning.
Here’s how it went down.
I came home from work, leashed the pups, and headed downstairs to take them out. They do their business, la la la la la, and we’re on the other side of the block (before you ask, yes, I say ‘la la la la la’ as I walk my dogs). Buttercup’s super-keen smell and razor-sharp vision spot a chicken bone. She goes for it. By the time I notice, it’s already in her mouth and I have to stick my hand in there to fish it out. CHOMP! She was too focused on getting the chicken bone in her belly that she didn’t realize that my finger was sitting on her molar. Yes, it hurt, but not badly. I didn’t even notice my finger bled until after I threw the chicken bone from Buttercup’s mouth out of her reach …. AND after I had to do the same thing with the chicken bone that Scrappy had gotten a hold of.
I’m not mad at my dogs. I’m pissed off that I have to go through this routine (minus the biting of my finger) at least twice daily, every single time I walk the dogs.
Everyone in this neighborhood eats chicken, but nobody can seem to throw the bones away in the trashcan. Keep in mind that there are trashcans literally everywhere. There’s one at least every 100 feet in the park next to my building. And there’s one at every bus stop located every other block.
I’ve had to take entire bagels and half-eaten burgers out of my dogs’ mouths. I’ve had to wrangle them away from eating pizza right out of a pizza box and Chinese food from the damned to-go box. (And remember this isn’t exactly easy with Buttercup being a big, strong dog.) I’ve watched people haphazardly throw their coffee cups into the street after they finished it even though a trashcan was literally 20 feet in front of them. Oh, and don’t let me forget about the time we were walking in the park and came upon a WHOLE cooked chicken sitting in the grass. No, not a container of thighs, wings, and breasts — a whole chicken.
(And I haven’t even gotten to the amount of dogs in the neighborhood and their shit that their owners never pick up. That’s an entire different rant.)
WHAT IS SO HARD ABOUT THROWING AWAY YOUR TRASH?!?!
Downtown LA and the area surrounding it is messy. It’s dirty. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s the sad part. We trash our own city. It’s gross because we, as a community, don’t take care of it. We don’t respect our own homes, our own neighborhoods enough to clean up after ourselves.
Littering has easily become my biggest pet peeve.
Now that I’ve lived in the city for almost a year now, my view on littering has been altered because of all the crap I see in my own neighborhood. Anytime I see any piece of trash on the ground, whether it be a gum wrapper or a pizza box, I know it’s there because some lazy ass couldn’t walk 10 more seconds to throw it in the garbage can.
In sum, it’s fucked up. I know Los Angeles is a gorgeous, gorgeous place. Sometimes it’s just hard to see that the beauty even exists underneath all this trash.
Don’t litter. I know you were raised you better than that. And if I catch you, beware of flying bags of Buttercup poop. FYI – it stinks.
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