I'll Put It Out With Your Nethers, Next Time!

I've let this one sit for a full day, because I was rather hot about it. I figured let it rest for a while and I'd chill out and find a balanced way to speak out about a subject that is near and dear to my heart.

But, after more than 24 hours, I'm still pissed, so here's the straight skinny:

Dear Idiots:

I realize that you enjoy our natural recreational areas as much as the next person. I even realize that the fire helps you get poon, or whatever. But for the sake of your pot and booze or whatever it is you hold near and dear CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES.

If you have enough time to flirt back and forth as you're loading out your car, you have enough time to grab that sack of trash you left behind, and toss some of the water that was five feet away and douse your fire thoroughly.

And you, young ladies, you stood around shaking your just-beginning-to-be-post-sports-season-chubby asses to the beat of the music that you were all inflicting upon everyone else there, hollering across the water to the cliffs for the boys to watch while you did it. In between sitting in your comfy little chairs and making fun of my wardrobe, that is.

In response to your comments about my body type: I eat better than you do sweet cheeks, and you hate the fact that your boyfriend's eyes followed me in jeans, work boots, and what is, I agree, an ugly (but comfortable) tank top, while you were parading around in your "oops my boob fell out" bikini. Some of us stole time that probably could have been better used doing something constructive and labor-intensive to go to the Hole and relax. Don't worry, he got just as grossed out as you did when I grabbed that first fish, and he couldn't even see the blood from where it had swallowed the hook.

But you ladies, you had plenty of time to douse that fire, and yet, you left it hot behind you. Why? Your sheer damned laziness could cost everyone the enjoyment of that particular nature spot if one stray spark makes it into last year's dead leaves. One. That's all it takes, and not only does our shady, water filled, handy dandy party spot go up in flames, but if the fire reaches the back of the canyon, it spreads out onto the grass land, and you cost ranchers their livelyhoods.

Yes, I said it. Your "out enough" fire could take food out of the mouths of children, you selfish little pricks.

I've seen people who are considered by society to barely be good enough to tolerate show more respect for the place than you did. I've seen known drug dealers police their trash and make sure their fire was out out out before they left from their party.

I've seen ex cons take a hike through the back trails with a black bag sticking through a loop of their shorts and come back with a fifty gallon trash bag full of other people's leavings.

So you, you freshly graduated young things, all set to take over the world, should be expected to do better, not worse.

The fact that you bagged the trash shows that someone had an inkling of what should be done, but that person obviously didn't have the spine to insist on your packing it out with you, or on dousing your fire entirely.

So instead, when I discovered the results of your sloppy, self indulgent visit to our fair Hole, I took more time from my day to make sure your fire was doused, with half-empty sodas and water bottles, and when I ran out of them, out of sheer pique, my own work boots. So now the soles of my boots, which I had managed to keep relatively un-melted through a couple of tours of working road construction, and at least one asphalt-laying job, now have pitted, disfigured faces, where they encountered the coals that hadn't gotten doused or smothered.

Let me just tell you this, if I see you there again, we will have a discussion about proper "wilderness" etequitte. And if I catch you leaving a hot fire behind the next time, I'll drag you back by your ears and smother it with your lazy little asses. Maybe that will get the point across.