Now I have seen everything. While enjoying a sandwich at a local restaurant, the server took a quick smoke break, outdoors, thank you.
When she finished her phone call, she opened the door to come in, but after taking a last drag, tossed the rest of her cigarette onto the sidewalk. Before it had time to extinguish itself, we saw another woman, who certainly must have be lying in wait, rush up and without missing a step, pick the still-smoldering butt up off the pavement and take a drag as she rushed off.
Usually, I approve of frugality, but this is taking it a step too far. It is not unusually to see underage kids from the high school crowd pick butts up of the street and smoke them, but I had never before seen someone take a drag on a stranger's discarded butt before the saliva even had time to dry, while it was still burning.
Barf Alert...
We do live near a resort town, however, where people interested in recycling cigarette butts have a field day. Since smoking is no longer allowed inside the resorts, outside every door there is a receptacle, usually full of fresh butts.
Ready for recycling?
It is a friendly little town, where strangers sometimes start a conversation while sharing a bench, and one time while we were chatting with a young woman from the Midwest, she noticed the ash can next to her and started picking out the longest butts as we were talking. She showed me her own invention, a special container she had fabricated just for collecting such treasures. She was quite proud of her foresight, and said she took it with her everywhere.
"Well, good luck," I said, "I've got to be going!"
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