Twenty Fucking Feet

I was walking into a coffee shop this morning, doing that morning shit I like to fucking do, and I was having a hard time finding parking. So I circled the big block over and over and fucking over, waiting for the perfect fucking spot.

Because here's the thing about pre-coffee me: I'm not in the mood for a leisurely fucking walk. I'm just not. I'll circle that block for thirty-fucking-seven minutes to avoid walking for five if I haven't had my fucking coffee yet. Is that logical? No. Do I give a fuck? Also no. Coffee first. Logic later.

So I waited, driving slowly around the block over and fucking over. In a fucking cage, no less. Yeah, I was in Dawna's pickup, just to top the whole fucking thing off.

Eventually a spot opened up. I parked and started walking toward the coffee shop, already thinking about the cappuccino that would turn me back into something resembling a functional human being. And that's when I encountered her.

A portly woman was getting into her car right about where I was crossing. She threw the thing into reverse and hit the fucking gas. I was walking toward the back of her car because I'm a biker at heart, and painted lines, designated walking paths, and established pedestrian protocols are apparently merely fucking suggestions to me.

She backed out. I kept walking.

And then I saw what she'd left behind.

Holy fucking Christ.

There was enough unidentified brown liquid running toward the gutter to irrigate a small fucking farm. Presumably soda. Possibly coffee. There was a plastic cup lying on its side with a fucking straw sticking out of it, its remaining contents spilled across the pavement. There were wrappers and assorted pieces of fucking garbage. I swear to God, I think there were even the remains of a fucking jelly donut.

She had apparently used the parking space as her own personal fucking trash can.

I looked at the mess. Then I looked at her. And as she put the car into drive and pulled away, I gave her my best fuck you for being a slob death stare.

She wouldn't look at me.

Yeah, she fucking knew.

She knew what she'd done. She knew I'd caught her. And she was trying to avoid the shame she had fucking coming.

The fucking audacity.

The fucking entitlement.

Who the fuck did this cunt think she was?

Oh yeah, right.

She has the same fucking problem as far too many people in this spoiled fucking country: She thinks she's special.

There was a fucking trash can twenty feet from her car.

Twenty.

Fucking.

Feet.

She didn't need to hike the fucking Appalachian Trail carrying her refuse on her back. She didn't need specialized equipment. She didn't need a municipal permit, a Sherpa, supplemental oxygen, or fucking provisions for the journey.

She needed to walk twenty feet.

And apparently that was too fucking much.

That's what pissed me off. Not the cup. Not the mystery brown liquid. Not even the tragic remains of the fucking jelly donut.

It was the assumption underneath all of it: Somebody else will deal with it.

Somebody else will pick it up. Somebody else will clean it. Somebody else will fix it. Somebody else will pay for it. Somebody else will take responsibility for the thing I can't be bothered to take responsibility for myself.

Her actions are the very fucking reason we have to pay people to pick up trash and sweep the fucking streets. Because apparently grown-ass fucking adults cannot be trusted to carry their own goddamned cup twenty feet and throw it away.

And to me, she's a fucking symptom of something much larger.

She's the kind of person who would fail in a truly liberty-forward federal republic. You know, the kind of fucking government we're supposed to have. Because liberty requires something from you. It requires agency. It requires responsibility. It requires you to get off your fucking ass and participate in your own survival.

But we've increasingly built a culture where responsibility itself gets outsourced. Somebody else will feed me. Somebody else will house me. Somebody else will clean this up. Somebody else will fix that. Somebody else will protect me from the consequences of my choices.

And eventually, somebody else becomes everybody fucking else.

This used to be a country where survival demanded something from you. You had to wake up in the morning and figure out how you were going to eat. You had to figure out how you were going to put a roof over your head. You had to produce something for your own preservation. You had to contribute. You had to solve problems. You had to fucking move.

And that's the beauty of liberty.

You're born free. You're born with free will, creativity, and motivation. You have the ability to build something, create something, fuck something up, learn from it, and try again. You're allowed to succeed, and you're allowed to fail.

But we've increasingly decided we want the freedom part without the fucking responsibility part.

We want liberty without consequence.

We want independence without effort.

We want somebody standing behind us with a fucking broom.

And that's where I see the parallel.

The person who can't be bothered to carry her own fucking garbage twenty feet is operating from the same basic premise as the person who expects everyone else to carry the responsibilities of her life.

Somebody else will do it.

Maybe somebody else will pick up the cup.

Maybe somebody else will sweep the street.

Maybe somebody else will pay the bill.

Maybe somebody else will provide the sandwich.

Maybe somebody else will provide the roof.

Maybe somebody else will make sure she never has to experience enough failure or discomfort to learn that she needs to exert some fucking effort and become a partner in her own success.

And if you build enough systems around that expectation, eventually you don't have liberty.

You have dependency.

Then we all get to pay for it.

We pay people to clean up shit adults deliberately leave behind. We build bureaucracies to manage responsibilities individuals once handled themselves. We create another program, another department, another rule, another tax, another fucking layer of government because somebody, somewhere, couldn't be bothered to take care of their own fucking shit.

Then everybody complains about the size of government.

Everybody complains about taxes.

Everybody complains about bureaucracy.

Everybody complains about all the fucking rules.

And meanwhile there's a plastic cup lying in the street twenty fucking feet from a trash can.

Freedom isn't somebody following behind you cleaning up your mess.

Liberty isn't being relieved of responsibility.

Liberty means you're trusted to run your own fucking life.

And that means actually running it.

You wake up. You solve problems. You make decisions. You create things. You provide for yourself. You help the people you love. You contribute something. You fuck up. You learn. You try again.

You become a partner in your own fucking existence.

That doesn't mean nobody ever needs help. It doesn't mean communities don't take care of people when they fall. It doesn't mean you never reach down and grab somebody's fucking hand when they're struggling to get back up.

But there's a world of fucking difference between I can't do this alone and I can't be bothered to do this myself.

One is humanity.

The other is entitlement.

And that's what pissed me off this morning.

Maybe I'm reading too much into a fucking cup. That's entirely possible. I hadn't had my coffee yet.

But I don't think the cup is the point.

The twenty feet is.

Because somewhere in those twenty fucking feet is the difference between liberty and entitlement.

One says: This is my trash. I'll take care of it.

The other says: Somebody else will.

Walk the twenty fucking feet.