|
Joe didn't smoke. He didn't drink or swear, either. He lived a simple life and had a simple job and was the happiest person he knew. He drove a simple pickup and drove the same way to and from work every day. On the weekends he went to the lake or worked on his yard. He was as normal and unthreatening as possible and tried very hard to keep it that way.
As he aged he saw more and more how complete strangers voiced their views to other complete strangers. This was done usually through the use of bumper stickers. He would read them and either not think about their message or shake his head and wonder who these stickers were really for, the driver of the vehicle or the person behind reading them. Sometimes these stickers would make him laugh, with messages such as 'My Other Car Is A Rolls' on the back of a dilapidated, beat-up old car. Other times he would read a message such as 'No One Died When Clinton Lied' and wonder what the point of the message was. It was obviously a political statement, yet Joe really didn't think it through and thought the driver of the vehicle would probably explain it if asked. Joe had no wish to ask. He knew about the previous president and knew many people thought the current president had lied about the war in Iraq, yet Joe didn't concern himself with it too much for the simple reason he wanted to remain open-minded and get all of the facts straight before making an opinion. And even then, he would keep his opinion to himself since he realized it is hard enough to convince yourself of the truth, trying to convince someone who really doesn't want to listen is nearly impossible.
So Joe was a simple man in a simple existence only wanting to remain true to himself and happy.
One day Joe sat at a red light in North Austin. While waiting for the light to change he took the gum from his mouth, rolled it into a small ball, and dropped it on the pavement beside his truck. The driver of the Jeep next to him honked his horn loudly, causing Joe to turn to him.
"Hey, bud!" The driver yells. "That's littering. You know how long it takes for that gum to degrade?"
"Excuse me?" Joe asks, frowning. "It's just a little gum."
"Thousands of years," the driver says. "People like you are killing the earth. What do you think about that, idiot?"
Joe thinks about it for a moment, then responds, "Well, how long does it take for that Jeep of yours to degrade?"
The light changed to green, and the Jeep driver floored the accelerator and gave Joe the finger. The Jeep had several political and environmental bumper stickers, but the messages were lost on Joe because of the behavior of the driver.
The Jeep driver went home, logged onto the internet and tried to find how long it took for gum to biodegrade. When he found his answer, he logged onto his blog and warned the world of impending doom and the accompanying catastrophe caused by gum.
Joe continued on his merry way. By the time he reached his destination, he had forgotten all about the Jeep.
|
