In which I demonstrate just how much of a grumpy old man I have become.

My new house shares its corner with a bus stop.  The bus comes every few minutes, and people get on and off.  Sometimes, the people who use the bus stop sit on the stoop in front of my house and eat a snack while waiting.   I like the idea that my little front porch provides the needy with a place to stop and rest, but it upsets me when the people leave their trash.    Yesterday morning, for example, I came home to find an orange peel in pieces all over my steps. 

Annoying!  Now, I have to sweep up gross rotting orange bits so that my house does not look like a trash pile, and so that people don't see a trash pile forming and decide, hey, what the heck, I'll throw my trash in there too!

This morning, while I was on the bus to work, there was a girl sitting across from me.  She had her headphones on and was bopping happily.  She opened up her bag and pulled out an orange an began peeling it.  I looked at her, then I looked up at the sign that says NO FOOD OR DRINK, and then I looked back at her.  The orange smelled good.  She tore the peel off in a bunch of small pieces and held them in her left hand.   Why does she get to eat an orange when everyone else on the bus is hungry, I thought.  Oh well, I thought.  I'm going to eat the shit out of a bagel when I get to work.

The bus pulled to a stop on a steep hill in Noe Valley.  The girl quickly hopped up onto her seat and pulled the window open.  As the bus proceeded down the hill, I watched her throw the pieces of orange peel out the window and onto the street and sidewalk below.

My heart raced.  This, I could not stand for.

"Excuse me," I said. 

She looked at me, but did not take her earphones off. 

"Excuse me," I said again, motioning to her ears.  She took the headphones off.  "I couldn't help but notice you throw that orange peel out the window," I said.  "You know, that was someone's front yard.  Someone is going to come out of their house this morning and see that you've thrown trash all over it, and they're probably going to have to clean it up."

"So?" she said.

"Well, we all live in this city together, and everything you throw on the ground stays on the ground til someone picks it up.  What if nobody picked it up?  What if everyone is just like you?  Pretty soon, we'll all be living under a blanket of trash.  Would it be so hard to carry a little zip lock bag for your trash?  Or to carry it with you until you got off the bus and  found a trash can?  Or, heaven forbid, just wait until you get off the bus to eat in the first place?"

"Fuck off," she said.

"But it's more than that," I continued, unphased.  "The  attitude that says its OK to throw an orange peel out of the window is the same attitude that says its OK to pollute our rivers and streams with toxic pig shit industrial waste, and its the same attitude that says its OK to buy a gas guzzling SUV just to flex your spending muscle, and hey, why not dump all of our trash into the ocean and be done with it!  Someone will eventually figure it all out for us and save us from the trash blanket!"

"What right do you have to lecture me?" she said, indignant.

"Beside the fact that you clearly do not care about following the rules, social or otherwise, or being a socially responsible person and thus have very little right to be indignant about being lectured, what gives me the right to bring this up to you is that I live in San Francisco, and I care about this city.  I want to make sure it stays a beautiful city, and that we respect our home.  And in a bigger picture way, I care about California and the environment and the world, and in an even bigger way, I care about you and your future family, God Help Us, and I care about your great great grandkids coming out of their houses in the morning to a fresh and crisp San Francisco morning and not having to step over someone's carelessly fucking discarded FUCKING ORANGE PEELS."

I realized then that I had leaned forward quite a bit, and was waving my fingers menacingly in the air.  I sat back and took a deep breath.  The girl put her headphones back on and looked out the window as hard as she could.  I wanted to reach her, to convey that I was not ANGRY with her, just disappointed that our society had not yet figured out the basic concept of not shitting where you sleep.  But it was too late.  I was the asshole, and she was the poor young girl attacked by the jackass on the bus with his OPINIONS about THINGS.  The bus arrived at my stop.  I got off.  She flipped me the bird as the bus moved on.  And that was that.