Cursed Tongue: Glassholes

Posted by CursedTongue on July 24, 2008

Glasshole:  1.  A puncture in the fabric of space/time, which drains the property value of a neighborhood.  Often caused by shards of broken domestic beer bottles.

2.  Person who tosses glass bottles on sidewalks and in common areas.

I used to live in the cleanest U. S. suburb East of the Mississippi.  Naperville, Illinois is not Switzerland clean, but still pretty clean.  I took the shiny clean city for granted, until one day I realized I could tell when I was no longer in Naperville.  It was not my fantastic sense of direction, because I don’t have one of those.  Nor was it the “Welcome to Bollingbrook” sign.  I realized it was because the surrounding communities were not as sparkly clean.

I’ve been fairly sheltered from the sights of urban decay, having lived mostly in small towns.  Even Chandler was pretty clean.  At least it was, until about six months ago, when we came across the first broken bottle next to a play structure.  We were about a foot into the jagged mess that glittered under the streetlight before I realized the danger.  I grabbed Scoungy Coyote close to the collar and turned her around.

I walk the Scroungy Coyote twice a day, every day.  And, being a dog, she does not generally wear shoes.  She does have leather dog booties, to combat what we call “hot paws,” a condition caused by 134 degrees Fahrenheit asphalt.  But at 6 a.m., when the pavement is still relatively cool and Scroungy Coyote’s mommy has the fine motor skills of a drunken gorilla and can barely tie her own shoes, we leave the dog booties at home.

But, at the moment 3 spots on our path are littered with razor-sharp shards of bottles that used to hold cheap domestic beer.  They all happen to be on the shady sides of the street.  So my shade loving Coyote used her dog brain to make the rash decision to cross the street.  Of course, she’s on a leash, so she doesn’t get very far, but still, I have to watch her more carefully.  And one morning I left the shady side to go around Miller Chill ground zero and Coyote thought it was her cue to do her mule trick where she refuses to budge because she’s not getting her way.  To get her to move, I had to promise her cheese.

The street sweeper, once a frequent visitor to my neighborhood, has become illusive.  And at a time when the teenagers are out of school, walking the path from the houses to the Chick-Fil-A, the Jamba Juice or the Wal-mart and back.  Leaving empty boxes, cups and bottles in their wakes, because apparently their mothers didn’t teach them how very evil it was to litter.

I could never be a police officer.  I’d spend all day writing tickets for litter violations.  There’d be burglaries, moving violations and meth labs everywhere.  It would be bedlam.  But the streets would be clean.

Maybe there is some litter-related trauma I have blocked from my memory.  Or maybe it was watching too much public television when I was young.  Littering is high on my personal list of Cardinal Sins.  I grind my teeth, and feel the vein in my forehead throb when I see someone litter.  In the grand scheme of things a cigarette butt is a small thing, but millions of those wont-decompose-for-12-years leftover cancer sticks add up to a lot of garbage.

Regarding the glass, I called the City of Chandler’s street sweeper hotline, and my HOA.  I got a call back from the city the next day moments after the “miraculous” reappearance of the street sweeper.  Apparently, the City of Chandler thinks there are more important things than the cleanliness of my neighborhood with its downward spiraling property values.  But at least they cared enough to do something when I whined about it.

The HOA called back and told me she was sending out Kyle.  On one corner there is still a lot of glass, even a piece bigger than an iPod that’s still held together by the Bud Light label.  So either Kyle is a big slacker, or I mistook the sarcasm of the HOA property manager for genuine Kelly Ripaesque, cheerleader–on-Amphetamines enthusiasm.  Just the kind of attitude I wish I had, in this dismal housing market.

- Sarah Letnes

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