I have a lot of sympathy for the crap that smokers have to put up with.  Heck, I like to smoke a cigar from time to time, so cigarettes don’t bother me.  But people who throw their cigarette butts out of their car windows make me want to reinstate public hangings.  If this sounds a bit harsh, it’s only because the stakes of their selfish behavior have risen considerably in the current drought conditions.  We’re about 17-inches behind in rain right now, and everything is so dry that just looking at the grass the wrong way starts a fire.

It’s really amazing how fast a cigarette can start a fire in dry conditions.  Several years ago I witnessed it first-hand.  The passenger in a car in front of me at a stop light threw a cigarette butt out the window into the grass.  By the time the light changed (just a few seconds), there was already smoke coming from the grass.  I called it in and the fire department showed up pretty quickly, so it didn’t get a chance to spread very far.

If I hear one more story about a grass fire or people being burned out of their homes because of cigarettes, I’m likely to go postal…