Litterbug
I'm the first to tut when I see rubbish thrown down in the street, but stories of the 'litter police' pouncing on people for not throwing away other people's rubbish seem to me to be taking it a step too far!
Now, if I lose a valuable receipt in town, I may well stop to look for it. I'll maybe pick up any receipts lying on the ground and check if they're mine. And if they're not, well yes, I probably am going to drop them back down again, not go and throw them in the bin. Firstly, they're not my rubbish. Secondly, if it's a receipt for an expensive item, the person it belongs to may come back to look for it. Okay, so I might be stretching things slightly, but in essence expecting people to pick up other people's rubbish, is not too many steps away from telling them to steal someone else's belongings. After all, one woman's rubbish could be another woman's treasured possession. Just look at those earrings my aunt wears, after all!
Still, this new take on litter-dropping could work in my favour. Next time my noisy neighbour parks that heap of junk he calls a car outside my house and drops his keys or leaves them in the ignition, I could always pick them up and throw them away as rubbish. Or better still, take the whole car to the tip. After all, I'd only be doing my civic duty, wouldn't I?
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04/10/07 @ 10:54 
· http://www.milltech-systems.co.uk Our neighbours are beautifully quiet (probably quieter than us, with our children), I'm not even sure if my real aunts wear earrings and our neighbours have a large enough drive for all their beautiful cars!
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04/10/07 @ 11:33 · http://www.freewebs.com/johnrooney1 I looked at her in total disbelief. "I always pick up MY dogs mess, but this isn't MY dogs mess," I tried to explain.
The woman waddled off muttering "You should pick it up anyway, you've got a dog."
'yeah right,' I thought.
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04/10/07 @ 12:57 · http://writelink.co.uk/blogs/Lez I had been recycling plastic bags as poo containers for many years, considered myself a leader in the field (and on the pavement, too!) and had frequently given myself a pat on the back (unless the bag had holes in it) as a token good citizen award. Very few people 'picked up' in those days and you inevitably offended someone whether you did or didn't, both courses of action likely to give birth to the same cry of 'Yuck, that's disgusting' from a passing wag.
On one particular occasion, my dog was answering nature's knock on his back door - down a discreet side street this time; a pleasant change, as he usually chose a busy zebra crossing in front of the 243 bus! I was standing waiting for the finale with a tesco bag ostentatiously engulfing my right hand, a clear message to all but the hardest of thinking that I intended to do my civic duty and so to look away now.
'I 'ope you're going to pick that oop,' came a voice behind me. I turned. A small man with wrinkled nose whose name was probably Norman and, by his accent and demeanour, clearly came from a land of clean streets north of Watford, was pointing an accusing finger at my dog's rear end.
I resisted several impulses all at the same time which probably made me look, unlike my stooping hound, rather constipated, but did finally managed a ripost through gritted teeth.
'No, actually I'm a poo fetishist; I'm just waiting for my dog to finish so I can roll in it and then have sex with the first person I see.'
Norman, for all that he might be sphincterally challenged, proved just how fast the anally retentive can run when their lives depend on it.
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06/10/07 @ 12:31 · http://www.milltech-systems.co.uk I think Marilyn in particular would sympathise with you both as I seem to recall her blogging a while back about something similar happening to her.
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07/10/07 @ 13:06