Today’s Peeve – Photo: L. Weikel
A Peeve
With the advent of almost-cool-enough-to-be-fall weather, many of us are seizing the opportunity to break out the sweaters we put away last spring. Others of us are engaging in activity that turns out to be equally as seasonal, and predictable, but is far more aggravating. I call it the “time of the Return of a Peeve.”
Mind you, while this raises my blood pressure and makes me want to scream, I have to be honest. It does not rise to ‘pet’ peeve status. Alas, it remains fated to be a mere peeve.
My World Book Dictionary defines ‘peeve’ as follows:
n. 1 an annoyance. 2 a peevish mood or disposition.
To be clear, the clockwork resurgence of this activity is most definitely a colossal annoyance to all of us. But given the list of peeves both great and small from which I can choose this evening, I can’t say it rises to the level of one of my ‘pet’ peeves.
The Peeve In Question
Every spring and every fall there’s a resurgence of one particular type of litterbug: bikers. And by ‘biker’ I mean the bicycling kind. I’m guessing the lovers-of-two-wheelers come out in droves in spring and fall in particular because, as each year passes, summer more and more mimics Death Valley.
I’m also making the educated guess that they’re ‘bikers’ (again – not the motorized kind but rather the pedaled variety) because the trash, like the photo above shows, is almost always associated with ‘energy’ and often makes promises of ‘rocket fuel for the body’ or ‘instant stamina.’ And it’s almost always, always, always in gel form. <<shudder>>
Finally, yet another basis for my accusation is that I’ve personally encountered this particular brand of litter most often when taking a walk after I’ve seen a pack of riders fly by. These are usually middle age to older guys contemplating retirement but making too much money to actually take the plunge. So they weekend warrior it and shout about investment strategies or office intrigue for all the world to hear, while leaving us lowly walkers in their dust. Or rather, in their garbage.
Oblivious
I’d say seven times out of ten after being passed by a pack of cyclists there’s a health food store’s assortment of empty gel packs strewn in the weeds along the road. I’ve wanted to scream at them that our roads aren’t their garbage cans, but to what avail? They hardly pay attention to walkers as it is. The same goes for when they pass our house in roving packs like wild dogs. Inevitably, there’s some form of trashy evidence that they’ve paid our hamlet a visit.
Who does this? The packaging isn’t biodegradable, either. It just boggles my mind that they seem to love to bike along our amazing back roads that are filled with hills and curves and challenges as well as stunning beauty. And then just rip open their sustenance and chuck it – as if the people who live here are the clean-up crew for the Tour de France.
Yeah. It’s a peeve. But I find no joy in it whatsoever. So I won’t promote it to the level of a pet.
Bicyclists, please. Do better.
(T-82)